The moon is full on the 15th day of the 8th month, a piece of moon cake is sweet and sweet

"The moon is bright in my hometown, and the cake is the fragrance of my childhood."

Compared with the crunchy peach cake, sesame seed cake, and sweet but not greasy rice sticks, I preferred the mooncake that I couldn't usually eat as a child.

The mooncakes I ate as a child were mostly made with sesame icing sugar, five-kernel filling, and bean paste filling.

"Small cakes like chewing the moon, there are crispy and syrup."

Sesame icing sugar moon cake, a bite of icing sugar penny. Slightly cackling sugar cubes, crunchy, and still fresh in my memory.

Five-nut moon cake, the most classic collocation of course, almonds, walnuts, peanuts, sesame seeds and melon seeds. As I recall, the filling is filled with nuts that are caramelized and crunchy, as well as glossy red and green shreds that are both sweet and tough to chew on in your mouth.

Ask your parents and everyone else, and no one will be able to tell you what it is. When I was growing up, I was curious to ask my pastry friends for advice, and then I learned that it was the dried fruit that was marinated in sugar with orange peel and papaya peel cut into shreds.

The mooncake with bean paste is my favorite. The crust is crispy, and the bean paste filling is sticky. When you take a bite, your mouth will be full of mooncake crumbs, and your lips will be full of flavor.

The bean paste rolls around in your mouth, slowly melting, and it's so addictive.

I remember when I was a kid, every Mid-Autumn Festival, I was waiting for my mom and dad to buy mooncakes.

At that time, the mooncake packaging is simple, wrapped in white wax paper, the front printed with different flavors of the pattern, some are the moon palace, some are the jade rabbit looking at the moon, some are the flowers and the moon, and some are the moon lanterns.

Opening the wax paper package carefully, I was afraid of disturbing the mooncake and breaking the crust. While listening to my parents' stories about Chang'e and Hou Yi, I chewed on the mooncakes with great relish.

Toward the end of the meal, I folded the wax paper, tilted my head, shook my hand, patted the wax paper, and poured the crumbs of pie crust scattered on the wrapping paper into my mouth, chewed on it for a few mouthfuls, and swallowed it full of happiness.

Immediately afterward, will also stick out his tongue, the wax paper in the end of the pie carefully licked clean, afraid to fall on the ground unfortunately.

"The moon to the Mid-Autumn Festival is extra bright, the love is extra strong, the Mid-Autumn Festival to enjoy the bright moon, young and old men and women eat moon cakes."

Nowadays, it is not easy to find good mooncakes in the streets full of fancy mooncakes, and it is even harder to find good traditional mooncakes.

Because of my work, I am based in the city of Spring, where flowers fly everywhere. I miss my family every holiday season. What traditional flavors can appease my homesickness? I found the answer in the old-fashioned hard-shelled ham mooncake.

How good is this cake?

One bite and you know it's a holiday!

The old-fashioned ham mooncake is the most respected flavor of Kunming by Mr. Wang Zengqi, the great writer, also known as the "four two weight", which is called the first in the country.

As one of the five traditional mooncake factions of Beijing-style, Cantonese-style, Soviet-style, Chaozhou-style, Dian-style Yunnan ham mooncake, no fancy appearance, such as fried buns in general.

Ham mooncake is not only the favorite of Yunnan people, but also exported overseas, a real pastry world.

"Three parts skin, seven parts filling. Three parts fat, seven parts thin."

Break open with your hand:

"Date-red skin layers of crisp, ham tantalizing white sugar sweet."

Bite on a mouth, crispy skin aroma off the slag, ham filling meat grain crystal clear, like ripe red pomegranate. The fat and thin evenly, full of particles.

Slowly chewing, the mouth is full of ham, lard, honey, sugar collision out of the charming fresh flavor. Crispy, crunchy, soft, bouncy, salty, sweet ...... aftertaste.

According to records, Yunnan old ham moon cake began in the Qing Dynasty during the reign of Xianfeng. 1872 or so, the governor Xu Zhiming with the official chef Hu Shan and his son Hu Zenggui, the refined cooked noodles as the skin, Yunnan specialties Xuanwei ham money elbow as the filling, supplemented with sugar, honey, lard.

Made by hand, rolling out the dough, wrapped in a carefully blended filling, kneaded into a ball, placed in the oven and baked until the skin is golden and soft, the name is "ham four two weight".

Wang Zengqi in his book "human grass and trees" has explained: to "the past four moon cakes a catty, according to the old scale is four two a, known as the 'four two weight'.

According to legend, the Empress Dowager Cixi tasted this cake greatly appreciated:

"Crispy but not broken, fragrant but not dry, oily but not greasy, sweet but not argumentative."

The old-fashioned ham mooncake is a legend in the history of Chinese cuisine, with a thousand years of history of Xuanwei ham as its soul.

According to the Xuanwei County Records, Xuanwei ham: "wearing a green robe, thick meat, more meat, rich in protein, tender and tasty, salty and light, and not greasy to eat".

Cut section, meat fine, thin grease. Lean meat color like a rose, fat meat white as buttermilk, bone slightly peach, as if the blood is still moisturizing, each piece is the taste of time! The flavor of the ham moon cake produced is naturally excellent.

Once upon a time, before the 15th day of the 8th month, the people who bought the ham mooncakes crowded the streets, and the mooncakes were snapped up as soon as they came out of the oven.

It is said that during the Republic of China, in order to ensure the supply of ham mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival, Long Yun, who was then the chairman of Yunnan Province, sent a special unit to defend the mooncake store to maintain order in the purchase of ham mooncakes.

The human heart, the human spirit, the human heart.

From eating mooncakes at home when you were a child to looking forward to mooncakes thousands of miles away from home now, the old-fashioned mooncakes are still so simple, without unnecessary packaging, sticking to the original flavor.

Yesterday, I received the old-fashioned bean paste mooncakes from my parents by courier, and when I opened the shiny waxed paper, I smelled the scent of the mooncakes that I hadn't seen in a long time.

Taking a bite of a childhood mooncake spills a flood of memories.

"The moon is full on the 15th day of the 8th month, and grandpa is making mooncakes for me. The mooncakes are sweet and fragrant, and a piece of mooncake is a piece of love. ......"