Mid-Autumn Festival 2012

We'll be celebrating the mid-autumn festival (aka moon festival) with family this weekend. The holiday is called Chuseok in Korean, Tet in Vietnamese, and Tsukimi in Japanese. It's also known as the moon festival or Chinese Thanksgiving. It's a holiday where families gather, pray to our ancestors, as well as offer them food. And just like the North American Thanksgiving holiday, we too, load the dinner table with delicious food coma-inducing foods.


See what I mean? Let's take a closer look at some of the dishes, shall we?


The main source of carbs were steamed rice and stir-fried egg noodles.




There are usually a few stir-fried dishes during these holidays. Today, we had shiitake mushrooms with abalone and some veggies with shrimp.


Let's focus in on the protein; BBQ duck, BBQ pork, and roast pork from Double Happiness (in Chinatown). There are a variety of drinks in the background.


Fancy this?






There was a variety of sweets too; baked buttercup squash custard, a selection of fruits and moon cakes.


After everyone had their turn lighting a joss stick, offered food and drinks to our ancestors, and prayed, the kids burned the stacks of joss paper, which represented things like money and coloured silk. Once Grandpa told us we could start eating, everyone got into action. Dishes were reheated and redistributed, the roast pork, duck, and cha siu were chopped into smaller pieces. The table was also set with bowls, chopsticks, soup spoons, glasses with ice, and napkins. I put away my camera when we began to eat.

First off, the meats from Double Happiness were very good. The crackling of the roast pork was crisp and sinfully delicious, the flavours of the cha siu were thoroughly marinated, and the duck was tender and not soggy at all.

The soup wasn't as good as it could've been. We didn't bring out the hotpot this time, so all the components of the soup weren't able to simmer and concentrate. But when we ate the soup during dinner, the flavours were spot on!




Once everyone had their fill for lunch, the tables were cleared and wiped down for some afternoon tea. I'm not sure what kind of tea we had, but, I can tell you that we had the good stuff. The moon cakes were cut up and enjoyed with strong cups of tea.


We almost forgot that we had buttercup squash custard (aka sankya lapov), which Mom made yesterday, in the kitchen.


Some of the custard had set. Not sure why it didn't all set. Mom added five eggs into the custard! Perhaps there was too much coconut milk.


Back to the moon cakes. I like the lotus seed paste pieces without the egg yolks.


Happy holidays everyone! Cheers!


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You're welcome to take a gander at the past two years:

• Chinese Halloween aka Moon Festival (2011)
• Fall Moon Festival 2010