How did the custom of eating moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival come from?

The Mid-Autumn Festival on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, a festival symbolizing reunion, naturally requires a reunion dinner. Although there are many Mid-Autumn Festival dietary customs in China, eating moon cakes is the most popular.

The origin of eating moon cakes in Mid-Autumn Festival

Moon cakes are also called Hu cakes, palace cakes, moon cakes and reunion cakes. Symbolizing reunion, it is a necessary sacrifice to worship the moon and land in the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The custom of eating moon cakes in Mid-Autumn Festival originated from the food of Zhu Jie, an army in the Tang Dynasty. During the reign of Tang Gaozu, General Li Jing conquered the Turks and won by hiding moon cakes, and won the victory on August 15. Since then, eating moon cakes has become an annual custom. Mooncakes really became secular food, which was handed down from the end of Yuan Dynasty. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, politics was corrupt, and the people were in poverty. People planned to unite against the tyranny of the rulers, but they were unable to deliver the news. Later, Liu Bowen came up with a plan and spread rumors everywhere, saying that there was a plague epidemic in winter, and every household would buy moon cakes to eat at the Mid-Autumn Festival to avoid its harm. People bought moon cakes and came home to find a note hidden inside, which read: "August 15, night attack!" " "So many people rose up against the rulers, and the custom of eating moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival was handed down.

There is also a saying that in the early years of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, General Xu Da captured Beijing, the capital occupied by the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty, and the good news spread to Nanjing, the capital. Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming emperor who was playing chess, was ecstatic, that is, he announced that the Mid-Autumn Festival would be celebrated all over the world and rewarded his subjects for holding a military parade to convey the message during the anti-Yuan uprising. Since then, moon cakes have become the "legal" food of Mid-Autumn Festival, and they must be eaten.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, eating a kind of "palace cake" on the Mid-Autumn Festival was very popular in the court. Slowly spread to the people, people called this kind of cake "small cake" and "moon ball". Su Dongpo has a poem: "Small cakes are like chewing the moon, crisp and thick".

In the Ming Dynasty, eating moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival gradually became popular among the people. At that time, ingenious bakers printed the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon's fairy tales on moon cakes as food art drawings, making moon cakes a necessary food for Mid-Autumn Festival.

Mooncakes symbolize a happy reunion. People regard them as holiday food, use them to worship the moon and give them to relatives and friends. Today, eating moon cakes has become an essential custom of Mid-Autumn Festival in northern and southern China. On this day, people eat moon cakes to show "reunion".

Mid-autumn festival custom

1. Mid-Autumn Festival?

Sacrifice to the moon is almost invisible now. The activity of offering sacrifices to the moon in the ancient Mid-Autumn Festival is a kind of worship activity to the "Moon God" in ancient times, which is essentially the worship of celestial phenomena by ancient ancestors. In some ancient places, the ancients sacrificed the moon and gradually became the custom of sacrificing the moon. Our current Mid-Autumn Festival evolved from the traditional "offering sacrifices to the moon", which was written in Zhou Li in the Han Dynasty. It is said that "Mid-Autumn Festival" existed in the pre-Qin period.

2. enjoy the moon?

The custom of enjoying the moon comes from offering sacrifices to the moon, and serious sacrifices have become relaxed pleasures. Folk Mid-Autumn Festival began in Wei and Jin Dynasties, but it did not become a habit. In the Tang Dynasty, it was quite popular to enjoy and play with the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival. Many poets wrote poems about the moon in their masterpieces. In the Song Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival centered on appreciating the moon was formed and officially designated as the Mid-Autumn Festival. Different from the Tang people, the Song people appreciate the moon more because they feel hurt by things, and often use the lack of rain or shine as a metaphor for human affairs. Even on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, the bright moon can't hide the sadness of Song people. But for the Song people, there is another form of Mid-Autumn Festival, which is a secular and joyful festival: "Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, shops sold new wine, and you decorated pavilions, and people competed for restaurants to play with the moon, listening to songs for thousands of miles, and playing until dawn" (Tokyo Dream China). The Mid-Autumn Festival in the Song Dynasty was a sleepless night. The night market is open all night, and there are endless tourists playing with the moon.

The traditional Mid-Autumn Festival custom, the custom of eating moon cakes can be seen. Family reunion, enjoy the sweetness of moon cakes. They let joy and happiness fill their homes and bring more beautiful memories. Although moon cakes are an indispensable part of the Mid-Autumn Festival memory, the most important thing is to reunite with your family to spend the holiday and gain blessings and happiness. Mid-Autumn Festival, reunion, affection, affection. May the happiness of this moment, with the family, bring us more beautiful times!