Its already Mid-Autumn Festival / Mooncake Festival soon! In fact, it's tomorrow. During this time of the year, I'm sure many people would be thinking of moon cakes, lanterns and the moon itself and anything associated with the festival. There are also a couple of things which are not eaten during other times of the year or in any other Chinese festivals, such as the sweet sticky Yam and also the all-time wierd food:- The Water Caltrop.
Water Caltrop? what's that? Is it a water chestnut?
Yes and No. Water Chestnuts and water caltrop actually share the same family.
The Chinese for Water Caltrop is 菱角 or "Bull's Horn" for Mooncake Festival.
Well, see for yourself this root based food:-
They sure look menancing, like a bull head used for some sort of rituals and no, no one purposely shaped the 'fruit' to be like that just for the sake of the festival. This is its original shape and looks. It tastes a little like charcoal cooked water-chestnuts and skin is thick and hard. Well, as it is a bit hard to eat, the tradition is begining to lose its appeal among the younger generation. The other item rarely eaten other items would be the mini-yams. Due to their small size which is probably due to the maturity of the tuber, its more starchy than the normal versions. I don't really like it as it is too sticky for my taste.
Hopefully someday, the younger generation would look back to this post and revive this again when the tradition was long forgotten. I wonder how many of the younger generation actually remember any of these foods?
3 comments:
Good info...i really don't know that in celebrating Mooncake Festival, there are other things like water caltrop and mini-yams beside Mooncakes itself...haha
happy mooncake festival (:
Happy Mid-Autumn / Lantern / Mooncake Festival!
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