Mooncake season

It's mooncake season again and Change Alley in Raffles Place, among other places, have started allowing the various hotels to display their mooncakes for all to taste and buy. The mooncake festival is the Chinese Lantern Festival which happens at the end of the Hungry Ghost Month.

I remember when we were young and growing up in Malaysia, us kids used to have our lantern made out of colourful cellophane and wire wound into shapes of either a fish or a rooster. I think I always ended up with the fish. We'd light one candle on a highly unstable wire holder and walk aimlessly around the gardens. Such simple pleasures. If we're not careful and trip or bump into each other, or if the wick of that particular candle is more stubborn than the wax, our lantern will catch on fire and we'll have to buy another one next year. I think I remember recycling mine, patching up the torn cellophane with cellophane tape.

These days, kids have the option of a battery operated bulb on plastic lanterns in a myriad of shapes and sizes. Some even come with music when lighted. I've seen Ultra man ones, Hello Kitty ones and all other Sanrio characters. I'd love to experience this festival in China one day, just to see what the locals do. Intricately designed lanterns... oh, I'm such a sucker for some things traditional.

Mooncakes used to come in three varieties : Lotus paste with and without egg, Lotus paste with nuts and red bean with pumpkin seeds. The crust is pastry like and I usually have the red bean one as it's not as sweet. The way mooncakes were baked made them more of a savoury snack than a dessert.

Modern mooncakes are another thing. We have snow skin these days instead of the traditional crust pastry and the filling just gets more and more bizarre; Champagne Truffle, Durian and even Ice-cream filled. I've tasted a few and found them to be more of a dessert than a savoury snack.

I wonder if the Chinese Garden here in Singapore will put up a themed decoration this year...