The Mooncake Festival

Warning bloggers this is educational so feel free to stop reading if you have already learned your quota today...

The Mid-Autumn Festival (better know as the Mooncake Festival) is one of the two most important holidays in the Chinese calendar - at least according to wikipedia. Fortunately we are currently in the middle of the festival. I have not seen any parades or local culture festivals other then a small local resident fired fireworks. There are however tons of tins of mooncakes everywhere. They are often sold in tins as gifts. Mmm... mooncakes. Fortunately, I have enjoyed many moooncakes in the US and was thrilled to know that the festival would be going on when I arrived.

I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce a part of the blog I would like to call Bills' Bizarre Foods. I love to eat and try new things. As a result I have always been of a fan of Bizarre Foods by Andrew Zimmern (a TV show where a entertaining host tries various, often intimidating foods around the world) Anne and I had the pleasure of meeting him through a work event which inspired me to make this section.

So without further overdue I present the mooncake. It is a form of a pastry consisting of various fillings. Generally speaking the better the mooncake the thinner the layer of the actually pastry covering the filling will be. My favorite would be red bean - which is grounded into a paste. Don't let the name fool you, red bean is actually very sweet and not like the beans one commonly thinks of in the US.

And to wash it down I will introduce a favorite originating in Taipei (though available even in Minneapolis) Bubble Tea. This is a milk based tea that has flavors added to it. I recommend taro (a purple potato like vegetable). This drink is also available and usually served with several black tapioca "pearls" - between marble and pea size balls. You are given a wide straw so you can chew on these pearls when you drink the beverage. Eating and drinking at the same time - Brilliant! For those of you who know and love Bubble Tea, here is one more reason to come visit. See the number 5 on the tea? That was its cost in yuan (the dollar of China). The current conversion rate is 6.83 yuan per US dollar. Which means this drink costs about 73 cents. For those of you not familiar with the cost of Bubble Tea in Minneapolis it is about $4.00. Hurray for China!