The sea is born with a bright moon, and the end of the world is at this time.
It is also the Mid-Autumn Festival of the year, and the good memories of Lao Yibo, a food blogger who grew up in Guangzhou Qilou, about the Mid-Autumn Festival, are when they were young, neighbors sat around the rooftop and shared their best mooncakes; Master Jian of Zhongshan has been a chef in Chinese restaurants in the United States for more than 30 years, and every Mid-Autumn Festival, he has to make his own mooncakes to give to the guys; International students in foreign countries bought their favorite lotus egg yolk flavored mooncakes online in advance and saved them for the Mid-Autumn Festival.
On the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Nandu and N video reporters learned from many interviews that Cantonese-style mooncakes have been exported to Southeast Asia and European and American overseas Chinese settlements in recent decades, carrying the ritual sense of the Mid-Autumn Festival, but also pinning on the nostalgia of Chinese sons and daughters, witnessing the seeds of traditional Mid-Autumn Festival culture taking root in foreign countries.
American stores sell Cantonese mooncakes. Graph source network
Landing overseas
In the 1990s, Master Jian traveled to Hawaii in the United States to work as a chef in a local Chinese restaurant for more than 30 years.
"When I first arrived, mooncakes cost $30 a box, so I thought about making it myself." Master Jian told Nandu reporter that he would make about 80 monthly cakes every year and give them to the guys in the kitchen.
"Ice skin mooncakes are very popular now, but I still like traditional Cantonese mooncakes." Chef Jian said that the wooden molds for making mooncakes were all brought to the United States from China, and he liked to make mooncakes flavored with five kernels, lotus paste and bean paste. According to his observation, the Chinese in Hawaii are mostly Cantonese immigrants, preferring the taste of Wuren, while the locals prefer lotus mooncakes.
Every year in the month before the Mid-Autumn Festival, Master Jane and his friends will start making mooncakes. After eating the snack, diners will buy a few boxes of mooncakes to enjoy with their families and give them as gifts to friends. He noticed that when Hawaiian locals buy mooncakes, they also learn a few words of Cantonese by the way, "Rather than saying that mooncakes are 'really delicious', they prefer to ask about the stories behind mooncakes and understand the cultural customs of the Mid-Autumn Festival."
Following the local customs, Chef Jane will cater to the taste preferences of local residents when making mooncakes, and launch gift box packages such as "mooncake + tea" and "mooncake + whiskey". "Whether it's Chinese, Americans, or people from other countries, everyone likes the meaning of 'reunion' behind the mooncake, which is cultural commonality."
Overseas Chinese homemade Cantonese mooncakes.
The children have been working outside for a long time, and every Mid-Autumn Festival, Master Jian finally has a reason to call his family and relatives back and sit around to cut moon cakes and enjoy the moonlight. He said: "I have been a chef for a lifetime, made a lifetime of mooncakes, I hope that my children can come back to see me more in the future and learn to make mooncakes, which is also a kind of inheritance of our Chinese culture, otherwise our connection with the motherland will be broken." ”
In Singapore, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also a very important festival for the Chinese community, where families gather together to celebrate the autumn harvest by lanterns and moon cakes.
Xiao Xiang, who studied in Singapore, told Nandu reporter, "I just bought a lot of rare brand mooncakes, some of which are kept for myself, and some of which are to be given away." Nandu reporter noted that the brand is a Singaporean handmade pastry brand with a history of more than 30 years. On a shopping platform, the baked white lotus mooncake is one of the highest-selling mooncakes in the store, and it has been integrated and innovated on the basis of Cantonese-style mooncakes.
Xiao Xiang said that some foreign friends are vegetarians and are not suitable for sending meat pie mooncakes, and Cantonese mooncakes based on vegetarian fillings have become a good choice for Mid-Autumn Festival gifts. "People are in a foreign land, if you can get together with friends during the Mid-Autumn Festival, it is also very good."
History
Lao Yibo, a well-known food blogger with 520,000 followers on Weibo, was born in Guangzhou in the 1960s and witnessed the brilliant development of Cantonese-style mooncakes.
"When we were young, we used to buy mooncakes with mooncake tickets, ranging from 8 cents to more than 1 cent each." Lao Yibo told Nandu reporters that boxed mooncakes were rare in those years, almost all of them were in bulk, and the mooncakes were uniformly placed on the wooden shelves of tobacco, alcohol and sugar stores for people to choose.
"Usually it is sold three weeks before the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the selected mooncakes are wrapped in light yellow oil paper, wrapped in a piece of red paper, and tied with hemp rope." Lao Yibo said that the Cantonese mooncake has a festive shape, mainly round, and the crust is red, just like the Mid-Autumn Moon rising on August 15. At that time, the taste of Cantonese mooncakes was mainly bean paste, bean paste, and five kernels. Every year, the mooncakes bought in advance at home will be sealed with an iron box, "in order to prevent our children from stealing, parents will also hide the mooncakes."
Near the Mid-Autumn Festival, more people lined up to buy mooncakes at the tobacco, alcohol and sugar store on the first floor of the arcade building. Because there is no refrigerator at home, bulk mooncakes do not have preservatives, the weather in the south is hot and humid, and it is easy to mold when bought early. "When we encounter moldy mooncakes, we are reluctant to throw them away, so after peeling off the crust, we eat the filling." Lao Yibo smiled and recalled.
Every Mid-Autumn Festival, children are particularly happy, the Mid-Autumn Festival not only means that they can eat the mooncakes they want, but also eat persimmons, grapefruit, star fruit and other fruits, when the neighbor's perilla fried snail fragrance comes, they will start to visit the door to share the food.
"At that time, every household did not have air conditioning, and the neighbors would gather in the open space in front of the arcade building, or move the table to the roof to admire the moon, and in the era when life was not rich, everyone took out their best mooncakes to share." Lao Yibo said that the Mid-Autumn Festival carries "reunion" and also carries harmonious neighborhood feelings.
In the early years, his father returned to his hometown from Thailand, and for the Overseas Mid-Autumn Festival, Lao Yibo also heard about it, "In the 1970s, the Mid-Autumn Festival was very popular overseas."
He told Nandu reporters that for overseas Chinese, mooncakes account for a large part of social spending, in order to reduce the burden, they will hand over some money to the middleman every month, that is, the cake head, relatives and friends registered, centralized purchase of mooncakes. "Similar to the current crowdfunding, the mooncakes they bought at that time were mainly Cantonese-style mooncakes, and the time transport and cold chain transportation were not developed, and overseas Chinese would choose to produce their own mooncakes."
Lao Yibo recalled that overseas Chinese mostly look for local bakers to buy mooncakes, but the craftsmanship of local bakers also comes from the production methods of Cantonese mooncakes, "many bakers and chefs are from Guangzhou and Hong Kong."
Later, with the development of the economy, logistics, preservation technology and other rapid advances, more and more Cantonese mooncakes were shipped overseas from China. "After the supply came up, the price was cheaper than the local bakery, and cantonese mooncakes were popular. More importantly, this is a mooncake from the hometown and a carrier for overseas Chinese to retain nostalgia. Lao Yibo said.
Condense nostalgia
"When it comes to Cantonese mooncakes going overseas, my first reaction is 'cultural roots.'" Rao Yuanyuan, director of the Guangzhou Folk Culture Research Institute, believes that no matter where it is, for the Chinese, tasting a bite of mooncake on the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival is a nostalgia for the hometown and is also influenced by the same roots of culture.
"Cantonese people themselves love to eat, and the festival food culture is also doing a good job." Rao Yuan told Nandu reporters that the Lotus Moon Cake in LianXiang Lou should be the earliest example of Cantonese-style moon cake, and the subsequent Tao Tao Ju Moon Cake was all the rage. In addition to the two major genres of lotus and wuren, there are more than 100 varieties of Cantonese mooncakes in the Republic of China period, and roast chicken, char siu and other flavors emerge in an endless stream. The well-known Guangzhou restaurant was also founded in the Republic of China period.
Guangzhou restaurant mooncakes are sold in American supermarkets.
"Our vision is that wherever there are Chinese, there will be Guangzhou restaurant mooncakes." Chen Simin, brand manager of Guangzhou Restaurant Mooncake, introduced that Guangzhou Restaurant has been exporting mooncakes to the outside world for more than 20 years, and it has just begun to focus on traditional flavors of lotus paste and bean paste filling. In recent years, in order to open up overseas customers and meet the taste needs of different groups of people, Guangzhou restaurants have added new varieties such as cheese milk yellow flow heart mooncakes and ice skin mooncakes.
"I'm not surprised that Cantonese-style mooncakes are popular overseas." Rao Yuanyuan said that among overseas Chinese, Cantonese people account for a relatively large proportion, and under the same cultural influence, the consensus of "the sea is born of the bright moon, and the end of the world is at this time" is engraved in the genes of generations of Chinese.
"In the past, heavy oil and heavy sugar were a major feature of Cantonese mooncakes, but now with people's pursuit of healthy life, low-sugar and low-fat mooncakes are becoming more and more popular." Not only that, but in recent years, cultural and creative mooncakes have also become popular, and mooncakes have not only been endowed with social attributes, but also added entertainment functions, "Now the symbolic meaning of mooncakes may be greater than its dietary significance."
Rao Yuan mentioned another phenomenon, "the mooncake session also set off a nostalgic wind." For example, the Guangzhou Museum has cooperated with The China Hotel to launch the "Disappearing Mooncake", which restores the flavors of roast chicken, sausage, bean paste and other flavors of mooncakes.
"When we were young, the mooncakes we ate were thick and thick, and I believe that no matter how the mooncakes change, they still have an audience overseas." Rao Yuan sighed that perhaps overseas Chinese who have crossed the ocean cannot forget the taste of their hometown in the depths of their memories, just as no matter how the years change, people's thoughts about reunion on the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival will not change.
Just a few days ago, Xiao Shen, who studied in California, also purchased a box of double yellow and white lotus mooncakes online. "I spent the Mid-Autumn Festival abroad alone this year." She told Nandu reporter that she likes to eat mooncakes stuffed with egg yolk when she is at home, and the taste of the mooncakes sold here is almost no different from that in China, "but I want to wait until the Mid-Autumn Festival to eat, there is a sense of ceremony."
Producer: Nandu Instant
Written by: Nandu reporter Wei Juanming trainee reporter Liang Lingfei