The  Mid-Autumn Festival is underway and it is time for mooncakes.

While I was in Canada last month I had a Chinese student in my course. She has been in several of my courses over the past 10 years in Canada and we have become good friends as well as colleagues. As I was leaving she brought me a box of mooncakes.

It is traditional to eat mooncakes during this festival which celebrates the harvest.

The mooncakes are of course round symbolizing the full moon. The cakes are about four inches in diameter and about an inch thick.

My translation app could not decipher the symbols, but traditionally the symbols on the cake are for longevity or harmony. Also the name of the bakery or filling may be shown as well as symbols of the moon or harvest.

The filling for these mooncakes is white lotus seed paste, but they could have other fillings such as red bean, mung bean or jujube paste. Last year I had some mung bean mooncakes.

These mooncakes each have two salted duck egg yolks in them. They have a wonderful briny taste.

These mooncakes are really delicious and very rich. I looked at the nutritional information on the back of the tin. The serving size is 1/2 of a cake and each serving has 330 calories.

Oh, but they are good.

If you haven’t already, go outside and take a look at the beautiful full moon.  Also, think about this time of year when the harvest of many foods is taking place. It is not far from my mind as I live in the Central Valley which is one of the best know agriculture areas of the country.

Steven