Chapter 36 Mid-Autumn Festival Mooncakes

According to the report, on the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the formula of Shanghai Xinghualou mooncakes went through a solemn ceremony, checked and sealed, and then sent to a bank safe for storage.Along the way, in addition to the formula being protected by a special person and taking a special car, it is also guarded by several motorcycle mounted police.The scale of this kind of mobilizing and ostentatious move is like welcoming and sending off the head of state, but the purpose is just a gimmick of advertising effect.However, what the newspaper did not clarify was whether this mysterious recipe is the recipe for making the mooncake skin, or the recipe for making the mooncake filling?Because a moon cake is nothing more than these two parts, and then there is the baking process, so there is no recipe.

Not to mention the actual value of Xinghualou mooncake recipes, the awareness of intellectual property and patent rights protection in modern society has been greatly enhanced, but it is really puzzling whether a paper mooncake recipe should be hidden in a golden chamber.Xinghualou is an old shop with a long history. It has been making moon cakes for nearly a hundred years. It has never heard of any recipe being stolen, or the economic interests of Xinghualou have been lost due to leaks. I don’t know why. Facing the enemy. Xinghualou's mooncakes are really good. In the past few years, relatives in Shanghai sent two boxes of Xinghualou's Mid-Autumn Festival mooncakes every Mid-Autumn Festival eve.The moon cakes are packed in an iron box. The box is very traditional. It is a pattern of Chang’e flying to the moon. There are three words "Xinghualou" in the lower left corner. It is very similar to the New Year pictures in Shanghai in the 1920s. Today, such packaging is rarely seen. .Perhaps Xinghualou has used the same packaging design for many years in order to maintain the tradition. Under the increasingly gorgeous fashion of imitating the packaging style of Hong Kong and Taiwan, it looks even more unique.Xinghualou mooncakes have thin skin and large fillings.It is also a Cantonese-style moon cake. The filling is very delicate and the ingredients are pure. The biggest feature is the moderate use of sugar, which is sweet but not greasy.I have a lot of iron boxes from Xinghualou in my house. It seems that I have eaten a lot of mooncakes from Xinghualou.

There are different opinions on when moon cakes originated.As a cake bait that symbolizes reunion during the Mid-Autumn Festival, it has been recorded in Zhou Mi's "Old Stories of Wulin" Volume 6 "Steaming from Food".Because it is listed in the category of "steaming from food", someone once wrote an article saying that moon cakes were steamed in the Southern Song Dynasty, which is a complete misunderstanding. "Steaming" and "congshi" are two concepts. Others recorded in the same category, such as sesame seed cakes, meat pastries, burnt char, and hummus, are all baked, and they are not the same as "steaming". No involvement.What mooncakes looked like in the Southern Song Dynasty is no longer possible to test. Even young people today may not know the varieties of mooncakes ten years ago. It seems that only Cantonese-style moon cakes are considered moon cakes.

The method of making Cantonese-style moon cakes is to put the stuffed dough into a patterned mold to flatten it, and then knock it out to become semi-finished products with clear and raised patterns on the surface. They are baked in the oven for half-cooking, and then pulled out of the iron drawer. Brush a layer of sugar oil on the top, and continue to push in the filling of the oven-style moon cake to bake.The moon cakes made in this way are beautiful and neat, and the surface is bright and lustrous, which is very popular.There are many kinds of Guangzi, not sticking to the tradition, and constantly introducing new ones. Among them, the most representative one is the lotus antler double-yellow or single-yellow moon cake.Among the lotus seeds in Guangdong, Zhaoqing is the best. Zhaoqing was called Duanzhou in ancient times, and has a history of thousands of years of rich lotus seeds.This kind of moon cake with lotus root and egg yolk is not very appreciated by northerners, and it is a little too sweet and greasy.In addition, shredded coconut, custard milk, and sweet meat also have the same problem, but there is a big market in Lingnan, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan.In the past, Guangzhou Restaurant, Tao Taoju, Dasanyuan, and Datong Restaurant were the best mooncakes in Guangdong. In recent years, there have been many new brands and joint ventures. They compete with each other and are hard to distinguish.

Suzhou-style mooncakes were popular in Shanghai in the early years, and later Cantonese-style mooncakes gained the upper hand. The Cantonese-style mooncakes of Xinghualou, Xinya, and Lao Dachang are all famous and each has its own characteristics.The shape is the same as Cantonese-style moon cakes, but the fillings are also Shanghai-style. Suzhou-style mooncakes are puff pastry mooncakes. People in Suzhou pay attention to eating freshly baked mooncakes, which are made and sold on the spot. When you pass by dim sum shops that make mooncakes around the Mid-Autumn Festival, the aroma is always pleasing to the nostrils.The freshly baked mooncakes are held in the hands, and the residual temperature is very hot. One bite, the soft and fragrant mooncakes are the most palatable.The fillings of Soviet-style mooncakes are also rich and colorful. In addition to the bean paste, jujube paste, roses, and peach kernels that are similar to those in other regions, the salty fillings also include pork, curry beef, ham, shredded radish, winter bamboo shoots and pickled vegetables, etc.Wuzhong Suxi mooncakes are not only sold for the Mid-Autumn Festival, they can be used as snacks all year round.But because this kind of moon cake is too "delicate", it is inconvenient to carry gifts, so it does not appear as a symbol of the Mid-Autumn Festival.On the mooncake counter of Daoxiangchun in Beijing in the past, Soviet-style mooncakes also had a place, but they were not freshly baked.After a long time, the meringue becomes hard and easy to loosen, so it is rarely on the market.When it comes to Soviet-style mooncakes, I think of an old store in Beijing in the old days, which is known to few people now, and that is the famous old store of southern flavor "Sen Chunyang".Recently, I happened to read the notes "Two Kinds of Autumn Rain Essays" by Liang Shaoren of the Qing Dynasty, and saw the record about "Sen Chunyang", and I remembered this very distinctive Nanhuo shop.That store lasted until the mid-1950s, and then it fell silent, which is really a pity. "Sen Chunyang" is famous for its Soviet-style mooncakes, tea legs (a kind of tea food that resembles Jinhua ham but not ham) and homemade melon seeds.

Shanxi people are good at making pasta, and I have never tasted the Mid-Autumn Festival mooncakes in Sanjin.But there is a neighbor in my family who is from Shanxi. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, I make homemade mooncakes. I can’t say whether they are authentic, but they are really well done.The oily noodles are used as the skin, and they are crispy after baking. They are larger than Cantonese-style moon cakes, but thinner.Kind of like a little pie.The stuffing is not too big and not too sweet. It is mostly made of nuts, sweet-scented osmanthus and sugar. It is a good bait. The moon cakes in Hong Kong are completely copied from the gold medal products in Guangzhou, and come from the same vein.In recent years, Taiwan’s mooncakes have undergone many innovations. The old store “Guo Zhiyi” has created tea-filled mooncakes called “Human Love Moon”. There are several kinds of matcha, oolong tea, jasmine tea, lemon black tea, and osmanthus black tea. Red and mung bean paste go hand in hand and have an unusual fragrance.

Yunnan mooncakes are also unique, and the most representative one is the cloud leg mooncake.Yunnan Xuanwei ham is softer and more delicate than Jinhua ham, but its taste is slightly less timeless and rich. The flavor of stewed soup and steamed vegetables is not as tasty as Jinhua ham, but it is a good choice for making mooncakes.The shape of cloud leg moon cakes is not exquisite, but the color is reddish brown, a bit like the traditional "zilaihong" in Beijing.The ham in the stuffing is real, not an embellishment. It is served with sugar and pine nuts. It is sweet and salty, and it is very distinctive.The Yunnan mooncakes I bought in the past were shipped from Yunnan, but they were not very well made.On the other hand, the homemade cloud leg mooncakes in the Yunteng Hotel operated by the Yunnan Provincial Office in Beijing in recent years are excellent.

Beijingers have a lot of good taste, and moon cakes of various styles and genres gather in the capital, and the supply is abundant.But in recent years, there has also been a situation of unification of Cantonese-style moon cakes.Not counting foreign troops, the time-honored Daoxiangchun, Daochuncun and Guixiangcun, as well as Dashunzhai, which is famous for making sesame paste and sugar fire, all made Cantonese-style mooncakes for a while, which can be said to be "the only way".In fact, Beijing also had its own characteristics in the early years. In addition to "Zilaihong" and "Zilaibai", there are also many kinds of pulp skin moon cakes (also called pulp moon cakes), skinny moon cakes, and improved moon cakes.Improved mooncakes have thicker skins and smaller fillings. They are made of butter and are much thicker than Cantonese mooncakes. The best filling is jujube paste, and the outside is wrapped with a layer of oil paper.This kind of moon cake has a taste of pastry, not too sweet, and the filling is not too greasy, so it is called improved moon cake.Laipi mooncakes are the best ones from Juqingzhai at the west entrance of Dongsi Toutiao. They are not good in appearance, and the skin is mottled and uneven, so they are called Laipi.Paste-skinned mooncakes are the most popular mooncakes similar to "Tai Lai Hong" and "Til Lai White". The skin is less oily and hard.

The best Beijing-style mooncakes should be Dongsibatiao Xikou Ruifangzhai's flipped mooncakes. According to Chongyi's "Miscellaneous Records of the Government and the Field since Daoxian": "The pastry shops in the inner and outer cities...the best one was the Hefang Building on Dongsi South Street. This shop started in Daoguang Middle School and closed after Guangxu Gengzi. All workers and The goods are all moved to Ruifangzhai in the east, fourth and north, and this is the only place in the East City.” Ruifangzhai was founded in the Tongguang period, and later merged into Hefang Building. The personnel and skills are the most traditional in Beijing. Patisserie.The shop operated until the late fifties.What impresses me the most is its crispy rolls, Double Ninth Flower Cake and fluffy mooncakes.The crispy rolls are savory, white-faced pastry, and are a favorite of those who don't like desserts.Most of the flower cakes are sold in the season before and after the Double Ninth Festival. They are filled with jujube paste and mostly have three layers. Each layer is surrounded by green plums, golden cakes and raisins. It is sweet, crispy and soft, and is very popular among customers.In addition, the quality of general pastries such as honey offerings and eight pieces of puff pastry is also excellent.The flipped mooncake is the most representative pastry of Ruifangzhai, and it is not only sold for the Mid-Autumn Festival.It is as big as the current rose cake, white all over, crisped in layers, as thin as powder paper, as fine as tissue paper, can be completely peeled off from the outside to the inside, extremely soft, and there is no hard knot that cannot be baked through.The stuffing is made of jujube paste, and it is fried without any burnt taste, and the sweetness and lightness are suitable.The skin of the flipped mooncake is bland and tasteless, but it is chewed together with the jujube paste filling, and the jujube and noodle fragrance are mixed together, making it extremely soft and sweet.Although it belongs to the pastry category, there are no traces of baking on the top and bottom, and its exquisite craftsmanship is worth exploring and studying.

Since Ruifangzhai went out of business in the 1960s, the flipped mooncakes have also disappeared.