![]() The South Pasadena Chinese-American Club will host its Moon Festival noon to 4 p.m. The event will have a harvest moon viewing, cooking demonstrations, an eating competition, mooncake sampling and more. to midnight Saturday in Chinatown Central Plaza, 943 North Broadway in Los Angeles. ![]() Los Angeles’ Chinatown will host its 78th annual Moon Festival 5 p.m. Where can locals celebrate the Moon Festival? ![]() “Even if we have dinner at a restaurant, we always make sure to bring a box of mooncakes to slice up and serve for everyone to enjoy,” Yuen said. “The festival is a good excuse to celebrate the food that’s in abundance in those times, and it’s also an excuse for family to get together in celebration,” Yuen said.īut if there was one requirement, it would be to have mooncakes on hand, she added. Given that the festival is centered around family and food, there’s really no wrong way to celebrate, Yuen said. How can people unfamiliar with the festival celebrate in a culturally sensitive way? Rebels coordinated by writing messages on slips of paper and hiding them inside mooncakes, making them easy to pass between one another, Yuen said.Īccording to the legend, that’s why the cakes are tall and thick, Yuen said. As the story goes, Ming revolutionaries used mooncakes to help overthrow the Mongolian rulers of China at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. However, the cakes’ significance is tied to another legend, Yuen said. Much like the festival’s origin, no written record exists about where first mooncakes came from. Traditional Chinese mooncakes are round, tall cakes filled with red bean or lotus seed paste and, often, a whole egg yolk that represents the moon. What are mooncakes, and why are they eaten as part of the festival? But no meal would be complete without mooncakes served for dessert. Traditionally, people eat fruits and nuts, but the meals that families cook at home or eat at restaurants vary by taste, Yuen said. The Moon Festival is most commonly celebrated with a large meal, Yuen said, because the festival signifies a time when farmers have an abundance of food. How is the Moon Festival celebrated today? According to the myth, Yuen said, the two are allowed to meet once a year - the day of the Moon Festival.Įvery culture has their own telling of these legends, Yuen said, and these tales allow everyone to take ownership of the event in their own ways. When the emperor found out, he dragged her back to the heavenly kingdom and created the Milky Way to separate the two. When most people tell of the festival’s origin, it’s often through myths and legends.įor example, in one telling, one of the Emperor of Heaven’s daughters came to Earth, fell in love with a cowherd and married him. Below is just a sampling of the mouthwatering varieties available.There’s no written record of the festival’s exact origin, but it has been celebrated at least sine the Shang Dynasty in 1600 B.C. If you want more of the palm-sized deliciousness outside of the street fair, you’ll find plenty of options across the Bay, including an exciting crop of new-school mooncakes, from vegan versions to mooncake-inspired chocolates, and with more pan-Asian flavors beyond traditional Chinese. This year, the festival falls on September 10, but San Francisco will host its Mid-Autumn Festival street fair on August 27 and 28 in Chinatown, where you can definitely get mooncakes from local bakeries while watching lion dancing and other entertainment. We recommend sharing and washing it down with hot tea. You only need to eat a couple of small wedges from the pastry, since it’s so dense. Some have a dried, salted egg yolk in the middle to represent the full moon, and double or more egg yolks are for extra prosperity. The San Francisco Bay Area is more familiar with the traditional Cantonese mooncakes, which feature elaborately molded round or square-shaped pastries with a dense, slightly sweetened paste made from lotus seeds or red beans, encased by a thin, chewy, alkaline dough. Cultures that use the lunar calendar celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, including but not limited to Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese communities. The moon is full and huge, down low close to the horizon, and almost orange in color. The Mid-Autumn Festival symbolizes peaceful family togetherness under the brightest full moon of the year, and mooncakes, mooncakes, everywhere.
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