月饼 Mooncakes 2025

[liuzhou]

October 6th this year sees China’s Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival. This is when people give gifts of mooncakes and traditionally eat them. So, already the stores are stocking up. Every year brings more and more types, from the more traditional to the outlandish.

 

My plan is to post some of the most unusual I see this year. I start with 桑葚米月饼 (sāng shèn mǐ yuè bǐng), black mulberry and sticky rice. I’ll pass.

 

 

 

Edited 21 hours ago by liuzhou (log)

[Smithy]

 

 

43 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

October 6th this year sees China’s Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival. This is when people give gifts of mooncakes and traditionally eat them. So, already the stores are stocking up. Every year brings more and more types, from the more traditional to the outlandish.

 

My plan is to post some of the most unusual I see this year. I start with 桑葚米月饼 (sāng shèn mǐ yuè bǐng), black mulberry and sticky rice. I’ll pass.

 

 

 

If I recall correctly from past years, you aren't generally impressed with moon cakes. Do I have that right? And are these particularly outlandish? I think the mulberry sounds good, but I've no idea about how compatible the sticky rice would be.

[Smithy]

I have a followup question: is there a correlation between the mooncakes and the lunar year? For instance, we're in the Year of the Snake right now. Are the mooncakes different than they would be during the Year of the Horse?

[liuzhou]

1 hour ago, Smithy said:

If I recall correctly from past years, you aren't generally impressed with moon cakes. Do I have that right? And are these particularly outlandish? I think the mulberry sounds good, but I've no idea about how compatible the sticky rice would be.

 

Yes. I can eat them, but wouldn't miss them. 

 

No. I don't see them as particularly outlandish, just unusual. I pass because I don't really like the texture of sticky rice. 
 

1 hour ago, Smithy said:

I have a followup question: is there a correlation between the mooncakes and the lunar year? For instance, we're in the Year of the Snake right now. Are the mooncakes different than they would be during the Year of the Horse?

 

No. They tend to vary every year but nothing to do with the Chinese zodiac years.

 

 

Edited 20 hours ago by liuzhou (log)

[gfron1]

Every year I have a few of THESE sent to the US from Malaysia. This year is particularly challenging with new tariff and shipping rules changes. Two years ago every one of them had a finger pressed in - later we learned that was the FDA/USDA? shoving a finger to prove there was no egg yolk inside, which is illegal. I find hers to be gorgeous, interesting but not out there flavors, and actually enjoyable versus the more traditional Cantonese style. [ETA for my poor sentence structure - salted yolk filling is illegal to ship in without prior approval, not shoving a finger in my mooncakes. That's perfectly legal.  :)]

 

Edited 1 hour ago by gfron1 (log)

[liuzhou]

五仁月饼 (wǔ rén yuè bǐng), five nut mooncake.

 

 

This one, I would eat.