THE Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival is not only a time for moon gazing and romantic lantern walks. It is also a time to indulge in the decadent sweetness of the mooncake. Only available between July and September, these fat, round pastries are filled to the brim with dense delicious fillings. Such is their richness that diners are only able to consume small wedges of these cakes at one time.
Dr Yam Kah Kean, a senior lecturer in Universiti Malaya who specialises in Chinese philosophy and religions, says that documentation about the mooncake can be traced to the Sung Dynasty in the 10th and 11th centuries. When the Chinese immigrated to Malaya in droves during the mid-18th century, they brought this sweet sticky delight along.
“The prevalent style of mooncake in the market today is of Cantonese origin with the slightly chewy pastry covering. This is because most of the Chinese immigrants had come from the southern part of China, like Guandong and the Fuzian province, hence the style of baking,” Yam says.
Mouth-watering varieties: From the traditional to the novel, there are now so many types of mooncakes. Of the other varieties of mooncakes, there is the Teochew version which is recognisable by its outer yam covering and pork filling. This uncommon mooncake is delicious when eaten hot off the wok.
More popular is the northern Chinese style with fillings of pine nuts, almonds and pork ham and is also known locally as the “wedding biscuit”, although it will take on a flatter shape on such an occasion.
There is also the Shanghai mooncake with a hard biscuit-like covering and a lotus paste and yolk filling.
To withstand the hardship of a long journey and the test of time, it was obvious that the mooncake was more than just another delectable piece of pastry.
The bakers saw themselves as sentinels of an ancestral tradition. Yam shares that the first aromatic batch of mooncakes, which have remained largely unchanged for the past 2000 years, was most likely to have pictures of phoenixes or words like “harmony” or “longevity” on the imprint of the skin.
“The Chinese had a thriving artistic culture and this was evident in the elaborate engravings on the wooden mooncake moulds. Over time, as the immigrants settled and more Chinese bakeries came up, the bakers’ logos began to appear on the pastry coverings. This was how the early bakeries established ‘brand loyalty’ among their customers,” says Yam.
Lum Tuck Loy, 64, chairman of Selangor Restaurant Keeper’s Association, has studied the mooncake industry during the early post-Merdeka years. The father of six who started making mooncakes at the age of 16 at Yuk Woo Hin, a Chinese restaurant at Petaling Street, recalled that there were only two main types of fillings in the market during the 1960s – lotus paste and red bean.
“The making of mooncakes in those days was very different from the present. It was a common sight to see the baker clad in a singlet and smoking a cigarette as he kneaded the wheat flour, lye and sugar paste by the roadside. Now, more hygienic conditions prevail. Back then, there was also no such thing as ‘healthy eating’ and a promotional tagline for a mooncake advertisement would run along the lines of: ‘Thin pastry, thick generous filling and luxurious oozes of oil’,” says Lum. In stark contrast to the health-conscious generation of the 1990s, who seem to have declared war on sugar and fats, the mindset was very different in the 60s.
“Diners loved it when they saw oil oozing out of the yolk, filling and the skin. It was also the general consensus that mooncakes with yolks were tastier than plain ones and it was very common for a premium lotus mooncake to hold up to four yolks to depict the four stages of the full moon!
Fifty years ago, people would sprinkle extra sugar on their mooncakes when going on a trip to preserve their precious cargo. Clearly, no one then had any issues with cholesterol or sugar levels,” he chuckles.
Popular: The northern China version of the mooncake is very similar to the ‘wedding biscuit’. However, animal fat was never used as it had the tendency to become waxy, Lum stresses. Peanut oil was the ingredient of choice.
“Right from the beginning, mooncakes were vegetarian, unless stated. The only elements that would remove the mooncake from this category would be the egg wash used for glazing the skins during baking,” he says.
The mooncake, as its name implies, is no doubt a culinary dedication to the beauty of a moonlit night. Inspect the fillings, use your imagination and you will see the resemblance.
Recalling the timeline of the emergence of new flavours, the mid-1990s was the era when the mooncake, which was predominantly filled with lotus paste and salted duck yolks, would experience a localised touch with the introduction of pandan, coconut and coffee flavours. Mooncakes with durian filling also came along with the agricultural advancement which enabled durians to fruit all year round.
In the early 2000s, diners saw the emergence of even more exotic flavours, such as dragon fruit and green tea. It was also a time for the emergence of double flavoured fillings such as black sesame paste with a combination of Japanese omochi, yam, cream tea or tiramisu.
Touching on the ping peh mooncake (snowy covering made of rice flour and sugar paste which does not require baking), there is a general misconception that it emerged only during the 1980s. According to Lum, it was already present as far back as the 1960s.
“The ping peh was rather rare in the beginning as it was only made after the bakers had finished with their batch of baked mooncakes for the season. I remember that we only made it one or two days before the festival day and it was only distributed among the workers and close friends,” he says.
In contrast to the array of shapes, flavours and colours of today, the original ping peh only came in white and was filled with lotus, green bean or red bean paste.
However, its sudden proliferation in the market during the 1980s may be linked to the advancement of retail-style refrigeration units which made it possible for vendors to stock the ping peh.
But more endearing than the ping peh are the sweet chewy dough figurines in cute animal shapes. For the Chinese, no childhood memory will be complete without these sweet treats from their elders. Made from the very same dough used for mooncake pastry, these edible animals were made after the bakers found that they had leftover dough. These were quickly transformed into piglets, lions or fishes to make the children happy.
“The metamorphosis of the simple lotus paste mooncake to the bewildering array of flavours in the market is a reflection of the advancement in culinary, agricultural and food technology. Somehow, the bakers have moved in tandem with the improvements and innovations. This was perhaps motivated by the need to entice a younger market which has acquired a global palate in terms of flavour preferences,” Yam explains.
Keeping up with the times is no walk in the park for the bakers, however, as research and development can take up to a year before a new flavour can be perfected, says Lum.
But interestingly, he points out that despite the endless choices available, it is the lotus paste mooncake which tops the best-selling list every season!
Cute: Animal figures from leftover dough. Still, Lum says it pays to give the impression of novelty. Despite its short spell in the market, mooncake revenues can come up to the millions, although Lum has predicted a 20% drop for this year’s sales due to the economic downturn.
Current prices can range from RM2 at wet markets to RM17 for premium brands. While it was not unusual to see diners coming in queues at the bakers during the 1970s and 1980s, the changing trend in the 1990s when mooncakes made their way to the hypermarket shelves also gave rise to intense competition.
This made the bakers realise that their mooncakes needed more dressing up.
In the 1960s and 1970s, mooncakes were generally stacked up to form a roll and wrapped in greaseproof paper. The bakers’ logo was then printed on paper and pasted over the package. This simple but environmentally-sound solution presented several problems. For one, wrapping the mooncakes was a time-consuming job and one had to have some basic knowledge of origami or the oil would leak out.
Many mooncake makers decided to opt for the convenience of plastic wrapping in the 1970s and then plopping them into steel tins or cardboard boxes.
The introduction of silica gel in the mid-80s gave the bakers extra confidence that their cakes would not turn mouldy with this method of packaging.
It is not surprising that mooncake boxes would eventually end up as collectors’ items. A glimpse into one showroom revealed an ebony box with seven silver receptacles resting on yellow silk and a bottom drawer which can be pulled out as a chess board.
Another creative take is a depiction of scenes on a tin which told the story of how revolutionaries overthrew the Mongol rulers during the Ming dynasty by hiding secret messages within the mooncake.
Taking it positively, however, Yam says there is a unifying factor lying beneath. “When you see non-Chinese companies coming out with mooncakes it means that there is an effort to foster closer ties within the community they are doing business in. This translates to acceptance and understanding of each other’s beliefs and culture.”
In the end, says Yam, whatever form the mooncake will take in the future, he is confident that tradition will prevail.
“The Chinese are very proud of their roots.”
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment