It
is one of Hong Kong's most treasured food traditions: the buying, giving and
eating of "mooncakes" to mark mid-autumn festival, celebrated in
Chinese communities around the world next month.
Bakeries
and supermarkets are already packed with boxes of the dense pastries,
traditionally filled with a heavy sweet concoction of lotus seed and egg yolks.
Ingredients are shown in metal bowls before a chef makes his signature "spring moon mini egg custard mooncakes" at Hong Kong's famous colonial era Peninsula Hotel. Photo by AFP/Anthony Wallace
But
not all mooncakes are made equal.
Picky
customers will queue outside the most popular stores to ensure they bag their
favorite brand.
Mooncakes
by chef Yip Wing-wah of Hong Kong's famous colonial era Peninsula Hotel are
among the most in demand -- and the priciest.
Boxes
of eight of his Spring Moon mini egg custard mooncakes cost HK$520 ($66) and
are only available in a three-day pre-order sale online, to avoid previous
unseemly queues at the hotel.
This
year's sale took place in August and sold out, weeks ahead of the festival.
Now
65, Yip invented what has become his signature mooncake 30 years ago when he
worked as a dim sum chef at the hotel's Spring Moon restaurant.
Chef Yip Wing-wah prepares to oven-bake his signature "spring moon mini egg custard mooncakes" at Hong Kong's famous colonial era Peninsula Hotel. Photo by AFP/Anthony Wallace
It
was inspired by gooey egg custard buns, a classic dim sum dish, and is smaller
and lighter than traditional mooncakes, although it still packs a sugary
buttery punch.
"I
have an emotional attachment to it, really I do -- because I would never have
guessed that it would grow more popular every year," says Yip, who started
to work in Hong Kong restaurant kitchens aged 13.
Deep
in the Peninsula's basement, Yip kneads elastic golden dough to show how he and
his team will make this year's new lychee-flavored spin on his original
classic.
Rolling
it out into lengths he plucks small pieces off and flattens them between his
hands before using them to encase sweet filling.
Each
dough ball is then pressed individually into a mooncake-shaped hole in a heavy
wooden holder, which Yip bangs three times on a worktop to pop out a perfect
pastry.
Those
who get hold of a box will share them with friends, family and business
associates as part of the festival, which is the second largest in Hong Kong
after lunar new year.
The
legend behind it revolves around a beautiful woman called Chang E, who drank an
elixir of immortal life to keep it out of the hands of a rival of her husband.
It
caused her to ascend to the moon, leaving her distraught husband on earth. He
took her favorite foods to an altar and offered them as a sacrifice to her, a
ritual then adopted by local people.
"Mid-autumn
festival is about coming together as a family to eat mooncakes and fruit and to
admire the moon," says Lam Mei Yu, 40, biting into one on Hong Kong's
harborfront during a visit from her home in the southern mainland Chinese
province of Guangdong.
For
his part, Yip vows to continue to bake them as long as he is able. "As I
make more I become happier," he said.
By AFP