It is said that eating mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival can be traced back to the Zhou Dynasty. It originated from a ritual of our nation offering sacrifices to the moon and worshiping the moon. It can be said to be a manifestation of nature fetishism. Chang'e flew to the moon, Wu Gang won the laurels, and the Jade Rabbit pounded the medicine. "Chang'e should regret stealing the elixir, and the blue sea and sky are my heart every night." What a beautiful poem. It has become one of the ancient and wonderful myths of our nation. It interprets what people in the agricultural era thought of. The unusual worship of the moon as a god. This tradition continued until the early days of liberation. At that time, there were still rabbit sellers, who regarded rabbits as the same gods as Chang'e. But now Mr. Rabbit has been replaced by Mickey Mouse and Chibi Maruko-chan.
It is said that in the Tang Dynasty, moon cakes were not called moon cakes. They were called Hu cakes because of the imported walnuts and sesame in the filling. When Yang Guifei ate Hu cakes and saw the moon during the Mid-Autumn Festival, she called them Hu cakes on a whim. Mooncake Bar, so the naming rights of the mooncakes were given to Concubine Yang. Of course this is just a folk interpretation. In fact, the earliest written record of mooncakes in our country comes from Su Dongpo's poem: "Small cakes are like chewing the moon, with crispy and sweet fillings in them." In other words, it was only from the Song Dynasty that mooncakes gradually became popular in the market, and mooncakes became more popular. With the addition of another layer of meaning of reunion, the round moon cake just takes the symbolic meaning of the circle of reunion. This feeling is as bright as the thousands of miles away, and it is most obvious on this day of the year. There is a poem about bamboo branches in the Qing Dynasty that says: "Red and white fur makes essence, and Mid-Autumn Festival gifts are given all over the capital." A folk song in Peiping during the Republic of China sang: "The lotus flowers have not been completely unloaded, and it is the Mid-Autumn Festival again. Every household is cutting moon cakes, fragrant wax paper horses and rabbits, and playing guessing games. Let’s enjoy the moon together.” It can be imagined that moon cakes have become quite popular with the changes of the years.
So naturally, it has been passed down to our generation that eating mooncakes is a matter of course during the Mid-Autumn Festival. It has just become a habitual and mechanical existence, and we have forgotten that mooncakes once contained our nation's yearning for the god of nature. Yet? Do we now just regard mooncakes as a kind of food and gifts, and treat them with such pragmatism, and have tragically lost the innocent and beautiful imagination of our ancestors and the simple and awe-inspiring affinity for nature?
Our Chinese festivals have always been associated with eating. For example, we eat dumplings during the Spring Festival and rice dumplings during the Dragon Boat Festival. This is related to the fact that our country has been an agricultural society for thousands of years. Festivals are closely linked to agricultural festivals. Eating food during all festivals is close to the earth. The Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival are the three traditional festivals in China. Eating mooncakes has naturally become so important. The fillings of mooncakes can be varied, but sweetness is the most important thing. The reason is very simple. In primitive agricultural society, before the emergence of sucrose and honey, sweetness was once a yearning and desire for people. It was considered by ancient philosophers to be the two most noble things connected with light and with beauty. The best word together. Therefore, we are still talking about "sweet life". Expressing the best days with sweetness is the most noble expression. Therefore, the sweetness of mooncakes is inevitable and important. It reflects the long-standing sincere yearning and praise of a nation that has experienced the ups and downs of life, especially the reunion and sweet life.
The Qing Dynasty's "Yanjing Chronicles" once said with some absolute certainty: "The Mid-Autumn Mooncakes in Qianmen Zhimeizhai are the best in Kyoto, and there is not enough food elsewhere." When I was a child, my family lived in Qianmen. Near the gatehouse, it is natural to eat mooncakes from Zhimizhai during the Mid-Autumn Festival, but at that time, whether it was Zhimizhai or other shops, most of the mooncakes they sold were the four traditional mooncakes: red, white, wool, and pulp. The filling is rich in green and red silk candied fruits, sesame seeds and peach kernels, but the sweetness of the sugar must be rock sugar.
People today are becoming more and more afraid of sweets. They associate sweetness with hyperlipidemia, hyperglycemia and obesity, and sweetness has become a terrible thing. Today's mooncakes naturally have to cater to people's new tastes. They don't dare to be sweet, but they dare to be stuffed with seafood, abalone, shark's fin, bird's nest, and even ginseng. They are as colorful as the face and become fashionable, turning the mooncakes that originally symbolized family reunion and the sweetness of life into That little bit of simple meaning must be cultivated in Laojun’s furnace, which is the Bagua golden elixir that protects life and nourishes the body. However, mooncakes become a basket, and any fillings can be put into it. Naturally, they dare to make popular mooncakes into aristocratic top-notch products. A huge or priceless mooncake costing thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars is not news. Last year, there was actually a renovation to make a pure titanium mooncake, and a fashion show Let’s “show off” together. Times have changed, will the folk customs in national traditions also disappear? Or does it have to be so commercial and luxurious? This year, the government issued a mandatory directive prohibiting luxury packaging of mooncakes, resulting in the price of mooncakes having to be lowered. This is of course a good thing, but returning mooncakes to their original position is not a temporary matter. In order to make money, mooncakes are still being refurbished and we are just kidding ourselves. Whenever I think of such big mooncakes and golden mooncakes that have appeared in our mooncake history, I can't help but think of the mooncake that Puyi rewarded to the Minister of Internal Affairs Shao Ying. It was two feet long and weighed twenty kilograms. It was amazed by people at the time, but now it seems that it is just a small thing.
Why do we have to eat mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival? It seems that this question is still worth asking ourselves.
○Xiao Fuxing