In Vietnam, the Mid-Autumn Festival is thought to be the second important traditional festival after the Lunar New Year. Mooncakes are an indispensable dish in the Mid-Autumn Festival. Did you know about the origin of mooncakes in Vietnam? What are their meanings? How many kinds of mooncakes in Vietnam? Maybe those are the things you need to know about Mooncake in Vietnam.
Origin of mooncake in Vietnam
According to legend, at the end of Yuan Dynasty in China, there were two leaders of the farmer movement fighting the brutal regime, Zhu Yuanzhang and Liu Bowen. To be able to secretly communicate information and orders, the leaders told soldiers made round cakes in which there are pieces of paper that estimated the time of uprising as the August 15th of the lunar calendar. Then these cakes became a means of communication both safe and effective. Later the Chinese took the mooncake making to celebrate the uprising event. The custom of making mooncakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival gradually spreads to the countries of the East Asian cultural sphere, including Vietnam.
Meaning of mooncake in Vietnam
The original mooncakes are circle-shaped, being the image of the moon at mid-autumn night. That night, the moon is the brightest and fullest in a year. Then they have more square ones. These shapes derive from the opinion of ancient oriental philosophy. The ancient oriental people believe that the sky looks like a bowl upside down, and the ground is flat and square. People are protected by the sky and the ground, so they are very grateful to the sky and the earth. In order to offer to the sky, the ground, the ancestors, people often make the square and round mooncakes. Mooncakes are said to be formal and polite dishes in the Mid-Autumn Festival. From the middle of the lunar July, on the streets, there are the colorful stalls displaying many kinds of mooncakes. Nearly the Mid-Autumn Festival, people often buy luxury mooncake boxes to present for grandparents, parents, people who helped them to show their gratitude. At the Mid-Autumn night, family members gather together, drinking tea, eating moon cakes, admiring the moon, and telling the story of the Moon Lady and the Moon Boy. What a warm and nice sight!
Types of mooncakes in Vietnam
Basing on how to make and materials, people divide moon cakes into 2 types: baked cake and plastic cake. The baked cake consists of two parts: the cake bark and cake kernel. The cake bark is made of wheat flour, chicken eggs, vegetable oil, and the kernel is made of green beans, taros, lotus seeds steamed, finely mashed, salted egg yolks, vanilla or durian powder. Especially, the mixed kernel consists of many things such as melon seeds, cashews seeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, winter melon jam, fat, sausages, lemon leaves, sugar, sesame oil.
The plastic cake consists of 2 parts, too. the cake bark is made of cooked sticky rice flour, sugar water, pomelo perfume. The cake kernel is made of green beans or lotus seeds steamed and mashed. The mooncakes have 2 main shapes: round shape and square shape. In addition, there are other shapes such as pig shape, rabbit shape. The cake kernel, depending on region, has an addition or taking out some materials.
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