The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the few important holidays in the Chinese calendar, the others being Chinese New Year and Winter Solstice, and is a legal holiday in several countries. Traditionally on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomelos under the moon together. Accompanying the celebration, there are additional cultural or regional customs, such as:

    •           Carrying brightly lit lanterns, lighting lanterns on towers, floating sky lanterns

    •           Planting Mid-Autumn trees

    •           Collecting dandelion leaves and distributing them evenly among family members

    •           Fire Dragon Dances

    •           In Taiwan, since the 1980s, barbecuing meat outdoors has become a widespread way to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The Mooncake festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which is in September or early October in the Gregorian calendar.  Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. It is a date that parallels the autumnal equinox of the solar calendar, when the moon is supposedly at its fullest and roundest.

Traditionally, mooncakes are round or rectangular in shape, measuring around 10 cm in diameter and 5 cm in thickness. Compared with other pastries in western countries, mooncakes are thick, heavy and dense. The filling of a mooncake is made from lotus seed paste and yolk of salted duck eggs. Mooncakes are usually eaten with Chinese tea.

Traditional mooncakes have an imprint on their surface. This imprint is in the Chinese language, and it usually means longevity and harmony. Aside from this, there are extra designs imprinted on mooncakes as well. The salted duck egg used in the mooncake for filling symbolizes full moon. Nowadays the general public gets mooncakes from bakeries. Nonetheless, there are people who prepare them at home. There isn’t a stated price for mooncakes.  It depends on the bakery and ingredients used.  One can find both low cost and very costly mooncakes in Asian supermarkets.  Normally, mooncakes are packed in a package of four.

Mooncakes comes in different styles in different parts of China.  Various ingredients and ways are used to prepare mooncakes.  People have even started making jelly mooncakes. Despite the wide variations seen in recipes of mooncakes,   people still tend to settle for the traditional mooncakes.