Our Family's Mid-Autumn Dinner.

We gathered our little family together and decided to put our own twist on the traditional Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival feast. Traditionally, foods eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival tend to be round to resemble the full moon. With that in mind, I asked each family member what they would at our special meal.

Instead of the traditional celebratory duck, crab, and/or pork at the meal, my husband chose to eat steaks. We chose to compliment the steaks with caramelized onions and sautéed mushrooms. We decided our round starch to go with our steaks would be roasted potatoes with carrots. The one Asian dish we added to our meal was some sautéed bok choy, which we kept simple by adding garlic and sesame oil to maintain it's natural flavor.

We split one mooncake for dessert and feasted on a pear tatin which mimicked the roundness of the full moon. And while we ate, my son told us the story of the rabbit, the old man, the lady, and the moon.

Urban Mid-Autumn Lantern Carnival.

Sunday evening we headed over to Victoria Park in Causeway Bay so we could experience the Urban Mid-Autumn Lantern Carnival. It was beautiful to watch the park transform as the sky got darker and the lights glowed brighter. There were many state of the art lanterns to look at and admire.

This holiday is all about lanterns and the moon, so we made sure to pick up a few of our own glow-in-the-dark accessories. Kids were out carrying glow sticks, throwing around balls that were glowing, and holding anything that lit up. My daughter used her personal money that she had made from doing chores around our home, to purchase an airplane that lit up and could be "flown" around in the air. We saw a number of other children with the same type of plane "driving" it around the park. 

On our walk home toward the metro train station, we got sidetracked by the path that the dragon parade would take place on. We found ourselves walking toward the beat of drums that are the distinctive sounds of a dragon dance taking place. We discovered that the dragon dance would not be passing by us until 10:00 that evening, so we decided to head on home instead of waiting the two hours for it to get to us. There were plenty of people with a spot already staked out, but it was not to be for us this year.

Mid Autumn Festival.

I've read somewhere that the Mid Autumn Festival is to Hong Kong what Thanksgiving is to the United States. Families gather together over a large meal representing the harvest of that season's crop. The weather starts cooling down and changes from hot and humid to less hot and humid.

Mooncakes are the food that is eaten during this time - people like to give mooncakes, but many do not like to consume them because they do not care for the flavor of the mooncake. Colorful lanterns are hung and children walk through the streets holding plastic blow up lights and wearing glow sticks around their necks and on their heads.

This week, I'll be writing about how we celebrated the holiday together as a family.

Mooncakes.

It's that time of year again, when the mooncakes start appearing on grocery store shelves and are advertised at Starbucks. We barely sampled any mooncakes last year, so this year we decided it was time to purchase a variety box. 

The mooncake is always a round pastry that is exchanged and eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival. The shell of the pastry is a thin, tender, and flakey consistency. The filling is very rich and a paste like consistency, often made from red bean or lotus seed paste. The top of each mooncake is imprinted with Chinese characters for harmony or longevity. Sometimes the name of the bakery is also imprinted on the top as well as decorative designs, like flowering vines, or symbols of the moon. 

The more traditional mooncake has a yolk from a salted duck egg in the center of the pastry filling. A mooncake is rarely eaten exclusively by one person. The cake is typically cut into small wedges and shared among friends. Because, each mooncake is very rich, a wedge of small mooncake is plenty to satisfy your palate.

Mid Autumn Festival In Hong Kong.

I've been told that the Mid Autumn Festival is to Hong Kong what Thanksgiving is to the United States of America. It's a public holiday here in Hong Kong celebrating the harvest. We officially celebrate the Mid Autumn Festival this coming Tuesday, but the kids have a four day weekend off from their school, so as a family, we are celebrating all weekend long.

I've also learned that the festival is all about spending time with family. Having an evening picnic on the beach, grilling together as a family, and watching the moon. Families will have battery operated lanterns with them and children will carry glow sticks.

The moon plays a large part in this particular holiday.

We've eaten our first mooncakes as a family and my kids get excited about them every time they see them advertised on a billboard. Both kids have tasted the cakes in their Mandarin class and can read the Chinese characters printed on the surface of the mooncakes. The mooncakes we ate as a family were not what one would consider the traditional cake, but rather a more contemporary non-baked style of cake. We ate what is referred to as a "snowy mooncake". A glutinous rice crust with a pandan filling.