How did the Mid-Autumn Festival come about?

Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional festival in China. According to historical records, the word "Mid-Autumn Festival" first appeared in the book Zhou Li. In the Wei and Jin dynasties, there was a record of "telling Shangshu Town about cattle confusion, crossing the river in mid-autumn and evening". It was not until the early years of the Tang Dynasty that the Mid-Autumn Festival became a fixed festival. The Book of Emperor Taizong recorded the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15. The prevalence of Mid-Autumn Festival began in the Song Dynasty, and it became one of the major festivals in China in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. This is also the second largest traditional festival in China after the Spring Festival.

Another explanation for the origin of Mid-Autumn Festival is that the 15th day of the eighth lunar month happens to be the time when rice is ripe, and all families worship the land god. Mid-Autumn Festival may be the legacy of Qiubao.

Mid-Autumn Festival custom:

August 13 to 15 is the Mid-Autumn Festival, commonly known as August Festival. The market is booming, and mud rabbit stalls are everywhere. At the full moon in May, a moonlight horse is set in the courtyard, which provides fruits, moon cakes, edamame branches, cockscomb flowers, radishes, lotus roots, watermelons and other products. Men don't worship unless the moon offers it. As the saying goes, "Men don't Yue Bai, women don't sacrifice stoves". At the end of each month, families will sit together in groups of three and five to drink and enjoy the moon. This is the so-called "Reunion Festival". Also, the moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival are divided into blocks according to the number of people, which are called "reunion cakes".

According to custom, there were gifts for Mid-Autumn Festival in the past. "Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone gives gifts to each other ..., rewards slaves with money, and stores post them, so every festival". Gifts are booming now. Get two cars before the festival, full of moon cakes and fruits, and deliver them to your door. Of course, home and residents here refer to business customers. Giving gifts is naturally to contact feelings and settle business. When you did it two years ago, you should also think about it. It was a male prostitute. I'm afraid this trend will be even stronger this year.

● Beijing

Traditional moon cakes in old Beijing include natural red invitation, natural white invitation and moon cakes with stuffing. Syrup moon cake refers to a method of making moon cake skin. It is said that the popular point of "extracting syrup" is to boil the syrup out and add a certain proportion of big oil to the skin to make it crisp. Muslims change big oil into butter when they buy it. This kind of moon cake is characterized by crispy skin and fragrant stuffing, which "old Beijing" likes to eat during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

In terms of dishes, crabs are delicious in August and autumn, and Mid-Autumn Festival is the time to taste crabs, especially in Beijing.

● Fujian

Fujian people have the custom of eating ducks in the Mid-Autumn Festival, so it is the fattest season for ducks. Fujian people cook ducks with betel nut taro, which is rich in Fujian. It's called betel nut taro roast duck, and it tastes very good.

● Shandong

Jimo and other places eat a kind of holiday food called "Wheat Arrow" on Mid-Autumn Festival.

● Shanxi

Lu 'an people will entertain their son-in-law in the Mid-Autumn Festival. Datong county moon cakes, called reunion cakes, are two or three feet big and have the custom of vigil on Mid-Autumn Night.

● Shaanxi

On the Mid-Autumn Festival night in Xixiang County, men go boating and climb cliffs, and women also arrange banquets. People, rich or poor, must eat watermelons, which must be cut into lotus shapes.

● Shanghai

Shanghainese Mid-Autumn Festival Banquet with Sweet-scented osmanthus honey wine.

● Jiangsu

Nanjing people love to eat moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival, so they must eat osmanthus duck, a famous Jinling dish. "Sweet-scented osmanthus duck" should be listed in Gui Xiang. It is fat but not greasy and delicious. After drinking, you must eat a small piece of sugar taro and pour cinnamon pulp on it. Beauty speaks for itself. "Guijiang" was named after Qu Yuan's Songs of the South, Little Commandments and Drinking Guijiang to Help the North Close its doors. Cinnamon pulp is a kind of sweet-scented osmanthus, which is picked around the Mid-Autumn Festival and pickled with sugar and sour plum. Jiangnan women are handy, turning the chanting in poetry into delicacies on the table. People in Nanjing enjoy the moon with their families, which is called "celebrating reunion", the group sitting and drinking is called "full moon", and the market trip is called "walking on the moon".

● Zhejiang

Stewed bass with water shield in Hangzhou became a dish at Mid-Autumn Festival family banquet, not only because the water shield was delicious at this time, but also because of the historical fact that Hans Zhang abandoned his official position and returned to his hometown in Jin Dynasty with the help of homesickness. This story has not only become a beautiful talk for generations, but also made water shield a symbol of homesickness.

Water shield is a family banquet for Mid-Autumn Festival, and it is also a seasonal soup in August. Water shield, also known as horseshoe and watercress, is an aquatic perennial leafy herb. The roots, stems and leaves of water shield are not only green and delicious, but also nutritious. Water shield can be picked in spring and autumn, but it is best to pick more water shield in autumn.

● Sichuan

Besides eating moon cakes, Sichuanese also kill ducks, eat sesame cakes, honey cakes and so on in the Mid-Autumn Festival.

In western Sichuan, smoked duck is a must for Mid-Autumn Festival, because the raw ducks at that time have grown up and are fat and thin. The master selects the ducklings born in that year, butchers them, removes their feathers, opens their chests, washes them, removes the wing tips and duck feet, marinates them with salt for one night, scalds them with boiling water until their skins are tight, takes them out, puts them in a smoking stove, smokes them with straw until they are brown, takes them out of the oven, marinates them in a pot, and changes the knife into a dish when eating, thus obtaining the smoked duck with golden color, tender meat and strong smoke smell. The preparation of brine is an important link in making smoked duck. Old bittern should be used for bittern, and timely spices, salt and sugar should be added for each bittern. When marinating, the ducks should be fully pressed into the brine with heavy objects, and the marinating time is generally about 20 minutes. If the time is too long, the duck meat will get old, which will affect the quality and taste.

● Guangdong

There are many kinds of Mid-Autumn Festival delicacies in Chaoshan, which are closely related to the cultural connotation, tidal climate and agricultural production. It can be mainly divided into three categories: first, cakes, moon cakes from all over Chaoshan, sweet, salty, meat, assorted and multi-flavored. There are also cakes, soft cakes and cloud cakes, all of which are Mid-Autumn Festival cakes. It is good for hipsters to send relatives. It can be said that it is a custom for hipsters to send moon cakes to relatives. Second, the Mid-Autumn Festival in the intertidal zone, when the sky is crisp and the fruit is ripe, grapefruit, persimmon, carambola, pineapple, pomegranate, olive and banana are another kind of food for Mid-Autumn hipsters. Thirdly, the agricultural taro and pumpkin used by hipsters to make taro paste and melon pulp are also deeply loved by hipsters. Among them, Mid-Autumn Moon Cake is an annual traditional food for hipsters. After the Mid-Autumn Festival, there is not a Chaoshan person who doesn't taste moon cakes. Although moon cakes can have various shapes and Chaoshan areas have their own characteristics, they all have a common feature, that is, they are required to be round. Taro, Ciba, etc. It is also necessary for hipsters in the Mid-Autumn Festival.

● Guizhou

Guizhou-style moon cakes are different from Cantonese-style moon cakes. They are baked and mixed with 500 grams of flour, suet, syrup and water.

Knead into water-oil skin; Mix 250 grams of flour with lard and knead it into a "dry cake". After the ingredients are mixed separately, the dry pastry is wrapped with oil skin, and the pastry is made into 40 grams of pastry blanks, and then each pastry is pressed into a round cake skin for later use. Bake sesame seeds, melon seeds and walnuts, chop into fine particles, mix, add cooked ham powder, jujube, mashed melon, cooked flour, crystal sugar and salt, and mix well to form stuffing.

Wrap a proper amount of stuffing in the crust, seal it downwards, press it into a flat circle, put it into an oiled baking pan, put it into an oven at 2 10℃, and bake it at 15~20℃ and 180℃ respectively. Golden color, crisp shell and distinct layers; The stuffing is sweet and salty, sweet and refreshing, and rich in nutrition. The master said that the pastry layer should be thin and even, and a piece of white oil paper should be placed on the baking tray when the moon cake blank is put into the baking tray.

● Taiwan Province Province

Kaohsiung county has a strong atmosphere of raising water ducks. Before and after the Mid-Autumn Festival, it is the most tender time for water ducks. Hakkas in Meinong area often slaughter water ducks and add vegetables during the Mid-Autumn Festival, which has become a major feature of the local Mid-Autumn Festival. In addition to eating moon cakes, the Mid-Autumn Festival in Yilan will also eat a kind of food called "vegetable cakes". Vegetable cakes are made of flour and baked with brown sugar in the middle. In Tainan, the Mid-Autumn Festival has the custom of eating potatoes.

In recent years, the Mid-Autumn Festival in Taiwan Province Province has developed a new activity-barbecue.

In addition, a food company in Taiwan Province Province introduced a new concept of Mid-Autumn Snow Moon Cake according to the different demands of consumption level and the lingering summer heat during the Mid-Autumn Festival. What is snow moon cake? Ice cream moon cakes are ice cream moon cakes, which are cool and smooth in taste. There are three kinds of fillings-champagne sweetheart, Hawaiian party and Viennese coffee. This moon cake is also beautifully packaged in full Japanese style, and the Baolilong packaging box with thermal insulation function ensures that the ice cream will not melt in a certain period of time.