Moon cakes, also known as Hu cakes, palace cakes, small cakes, moon cakes, reunion cakes, etc., have a long history in China. Eating mooncakes on the Mid-Autumn Festival can be traced back to the Zhou Dynasty and originated from the national moon worship ceremony.
When Zhang Qian of the Han Dynasty was on his mission to the Western Regions, he introduced sesame seeds and walnuts to add auxiliary materials to the production of moon cakes. At this time, round cakes filled with walnut kernels appeared, called "Hu cakes".
During the Tang Dynasty, mooncakes were first recorded. During the Song Dynasty, there were more and more records about "moon cakes". Su Dongpo has a poem that says: "Small cakes are like chewing the moon, with crispy and sweet fillings in the middle." In addition, the first record of the name "moon cakes" was also in the Song Dynasty, but moon cakes were not yet popular at that time.
In the Ming Dynasty, mooncakes truly became the official Mid-Autumn Festival food and gradually became popular among the people. In various books of the Ming Dynasty, a large number of descriptions of eating mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival began to appear. During the Qing Dynasty, the craftsmanship of mooncakes was greatly improved. Not only were they exquisitely made, but the varieties were also increasing, and mooncakes for moon cakes could be seen everywhere.
Extended information:
Classification of traditional mooncakes:
Traditional mooncakes are mooncakes in the traditional Chinese sense. They are mainly divided according to origin, sales volume and characteristics. Four major styles: Cantonese-style mooncakes, Beijing-style mooncakes, Soviet-style mooncakes and Chaozhou-style mooncakes.
Some reporters once combined Chaozhou-style mooncakes and Hong Kong-style mooncakes into Cantonese-style mooncakes, and then came up with another term for the four styles of mooncakes: Cantonese style, Soviet style, Beijing style and Yunnan style.
This simple classification based on region and then dividing east, west, north and south is unscientific. It is reasonable to say that Hong Kong-style mooncakes and Cantonese-style mooncakes are similar, but Chaozhou-style mooncakes are different in terms of materials, methods, and The style and taste are very different from Cantonese mooncakes.
People's Daily Online - Folklore experts elaborate on the origin of "mooncakes"