What is the origin of the name of moon cakes? What is the origin of moon cakes?

Moon cakes, also known as Hu cakes, palace cakes, cookies, moon cakes and reunion cakes, have a long history in China. Eating moon cakes in Mid-Autumn Festival can be traced back to the Zhou Dynasty, which originated from the ceremony in Yue Bai.

Zhang Qian introduced sesame seeds and walnuts to the Western Regions in Han Dynasty, which added auxiliary materials for making moon cakes. At this time, a round cake filled with walnuts appeared, which was called "Hu cake".

In the Tang Dynasty, moon cakes were recorded for the first time. In the Song Dynasty, records about "moon cakes" began to increase. Su Dongpo has a poem: "Small cakes are like chewing the moon, crisp and waxy." In addition, the name "moon cake" was first recorded in the Song Dynasty, but at this time, moon cakes were not popular.

It was not until the Ming Dynasty that mooncakes really became the official food of Mid-Autumn Festival and gradually spread among the people. In all kinds of books in the Ming Dynasty, a large number of descriptions about eating moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival began to appear. In the Qing Dynasty, the production technology of moon cakes was greatly improved, not only beautifully made, but also the variety was increasing, and moon cakes for the moon could be seen everywhere.

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Classification of traditional moon cakes:

Traditional moon cakes are traditional moon cakes in China. According to the origin, sales volume and characteristics, there are mainly four factions: Cantonese-style moon cakes, Beijing-style moon cakes, Soviet-style moon cakes and Chaozhou-style moon cakes.

Another reporter once combined Chaozhou-style mooncakes with Hong Kong-style mooncakes to make Cantonese-style mooncakes, and then came to another view of four groups of mooncakes: Cantonese, Suzhou, Beijing and Yunnan.

It is unscientific to simply merge by region and then separate the east, west, north and south. Hong Kong-style moon cakes are similar to Cantonese-style moon cakes, but Chaozhou-style moon cakes are quite different from Cantonese-style moon cakes in materials, methods, styles and tastes.

People's Daily Online-Folklore experts explain the origin of "moon cakes"