Why is Wuren moon cake a "dark dish" preserved by our ancestors?

It's Mid-Autumn Festival again. It's time to eat moon cakes. Among all kinds of moon cakes in Mid-Autumn Festival, the most famous one is Wuren moon cake, which is named "Wuren" because it contains almonds, walnuts, peanuts, sesame seeds and melon seeds. But I don't know when, Wuren moon cake became the object of diss, and was called "dark cuisine" by netizens, clamoring for Wuren moon cake to get out of the moon cake world and give it to anyone you hate. How did such a bad moon cake come into being? There is actually a story behind this. China people like to trace their folk customs back to a long time ago, such as moon cakes. Some people insist that this is the "Taishi cake" for later generations of Shang Dynasty to commemorate Taishi Wenzhong. This statement is obviously far-fetched. Because the well-connected Master Wen who assisted Shang Zhouwang only appeared in the Ming Dynasty. Even the names of surnames were only available in the Tang and Song Dynasties. Of course, it is impossible for an IP that only existed in the Ming Dynasty to go to the Shang Dynasty to invent "Taishi cake" with the IP of the Tang and Song Dynasties. In fact, before the opening of the Silk Road in the Han Dynasty, people in China didn't even eat pasta, let alone moon cakes. The reason is that the ancient Central Plains was a farming civilization, and it was more accustomed to eating grain directly after harvest (the so-called "five grains").

As for grinding grain into flour, making all kinds of cakes and putting them on your body for convenient eating (so-called "powder food"), that is the way for Hu people to make a living by riding horses. So in the extremely open Tang Dynasty, all kinds of "Hu cakes" became popular on a large scale in the Central Plains. Because it is convenient to eat, it is particularly full and very popular among the general public. Although the Tang Dynasty was an unprecedented event, in the face of the low productivity in ancient times, having enough to eat was still the main appeal of most people. In the domestic online drama "The Longest Day in Chang 'an", Master Mao Shun said: "A penny can buy two Hu cakes." In fact, Hu cakes at that time should have been more expensive.

The original origin of moon cakes is actually this kind of Hu cake, which was widely circulated among the people in the Tang Dynasty. With the welcome of the people, of course, the upper class should have fun with the people. Because the court ate Hu cake not to be hungry but to accompany tea, in order to appreciate the bitterness of tea, Hu cake began to add a lot of sesame seeds and honey (the sugar-making technology was not developed at that time) and became a dessert with tea. Today, in neighboring Japan, you can actually see a similar dessert called "Dafu", which is actually a distant relative of Yue. According to unreliable rumors, this improved "Hu cake" was named moon cake because of an unexpected celebration banquet. Emperor Xuanzong, who likes Hu people's culture, likes this snack very much. At that time, it was the Mid-Autumn Festival. Facing the bright full moon, Tang Xuanzong gave it a new name-moon cake.

Moreover, it is stipulated that it should be eaten every Mid-Autumn Festival, so "moon cakes" have become attached to the Mid-Autumn Festival. When mooncakes were re-promoted from the court to the Hui people's homes in Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty, there was a problem-unlike the dignitaries in the court, they were more concerned about the taste of mooncakes, while the interest of ordinary people in mooncakes was a sense of fullness. So in the Song Dynasty at the latest, mooncakes began to experience various "magic" among the people, and gradually moved closer to the familiar Wuren mooncake:

Expensive honey was invited out of the moon cake for the first time. In the Song Dynasty, melon seeds, which were very popular among the people, were added. Peanuts and almonds or olives were added in Ming Dynasty. In addition, there are sesame seeds and walnuts in the moon cakes in the Tang Dynasty. At the latest in the Qing Dynasty, the creative ideas of Wuren moon cakes were basically stereotyped. In A Dream of Red Mansions, a kind of moon cake made of Chinese pine and melon seeds was mentioned in the moon cake eaten by Jia's family on the 76th Mid-Autumn Festival. This kind of moon cake, which sounds greasy, is considered by many people to be the predecessor of "Wuren Moon Cake". It is worth mentioning that this kind of moon cake was actually presented by the palace, which shows that the similar taste was accepted by the upper class at that time.

What? Why do you like to add all kinds of "benevolence" to moon cakes in magic? In fact, the reason is still the same: in ancient times when productivity was low, most people had limited opportunities to eat high-calorie foods. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, they can have a sweet and oily Wuren moon cake instead of getting bored. They want to eat meat. In that case, the sweeter the oil, the more popular it is. This is how Wuren moon cakes are preserved. For example, Su Dongpo once wrote a poem: "A small cake is like chewing the moon, crisp and graceful." Su Shi is at least a literati. After being an official all his life, eating sweet moon cakes is as beautiful as "chewing the moon", which shows how scarce desserts were at that time.

In fact, during the Republic of China, when Wuren moon cakes were really famous, and in the early days of the founding of New China, this sweet and greasy mouth shape of heavy oil was still the mainstream of China society. So you see, it's not that Wuren moon cakes taste bad, but that the taste of China people has changed after they have a good life.