How do you spend the Mid-Autumn Festival? How can it be meaningful?

The 15th day of the eighth lunar month is a traditional Mid-Autumn Festival in China. This is the middle of autumn, so it is called Mid-Autumn Festival. This is also the second largest traditional festival in China after the Spring Festival.

The origin of Mid-Autumn Festival

In China's lunar calendar, a year is divided into four seasons, and each season is divided into three parts: Meng, Zhong and Ji, so Mid-Autumn Festival is also called Mid-Autumn Festival. The moon on August 15th is rounder and brighter than the full moons in other months, so it is also called Moon Festival, Autumn Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, August Festival, August Festival, Moon Chasing Festival, Moon Worship Festival, Daughter's Day or Reunion Festival, which is a traditional cultural festival popular among many ethnic groups in China. On this night, people look up at the bright moon in the sky like jade, and naturally look forward to family reunion. Wanderers who are far away from home also take this opportunity to pin their thoughts on their hometown and relatives. Therefore, Mid-Autumn Festival is also called "Reunion Festival".

It is said that the moon is closest to the earth this night, and the moon is the largest and brightest, so there is a custom of drinking and enjoying the moon since ancient times. The daughter-in-law who goes back to her mother's house will return to her husband's house in the future, in order to express her happiness and good luck. In some places, such as Ningbo, Taizhou and Zhoushan, the Mid-Autumn Festival is scheduled for August 16th, which is related to Fang Guozhen's change to "Lantern Festival on the 14th day of the first month and Mid-Autumn Festival on August 16th" in order to prevent attacks by officers and men of Yuan Dynasty and Zhu Yuantian. Besides, in Hong Kong, after the Mid-Autumn Festival, we will have another carnival in Izayoi called "Chasing the Moon".

The word "Mid-Autumn Festival" first appeared in the book "Zhou Li", and it was in the Tang Dynasty that a national festival really formed. In ancient times, our people had the custom of "autumn dusk and evening moon". The evening moon is to worship the moon god. In the Zhou dynasty, every mid-autumn night was held to welcome the cold and offer sacrifices to the moon. Set up a big incense table, and put moon cakes, watermelons, apples, red dates, plums, grapes and other sacrifices, among which moon cakes and watermelons are absolutely indispensable. Watermelon has to be cut into lotus shapes. Under the moon, put the moon statue in the direction of the moon, and the red candle burns high. The whole family worships the moon in turn, and then the housewife cuts up the reunion moon cake. Cut the people in advance to calculate the number of people in the whole family, at home and in the field, all together, can not cut more or less, the size should be the same.

The custom of eating moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival was formed in the Ming Dynasty. Tian Rucheng, a writer in the Ming Dynasty, wrote in "Notes on the Tour of the West Lake": "August 15th is called Mid-Autumn Festival, and the folks take mooncakes as a legacy to get together". Shen Bang, a historian of the Ming Dynasty, wrote in Miscellanies of Wan Department that "the flour cakes are different in size, and they are different in size. The cake is filled with fruit, and the name is different. There is a cake worth hundreds of dollars. " The book also introduces the production process at that time, which has reached a high level. The moon cakes used for the moon in the Beijing Palace are "more than feet in diameter from bottom to top and weigh two pounds." Later, with the evolution of the past dynasties, the varieties and patterns of moon cakes became more and more abundant, the production technology was updated, and the flavor was more. Eating moon cakes on August 15th has become an ancient and very meaningful tradition of the Chinese nation.

In the Tang Dynasty, it was quite popular to enjoy and play with the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival. In the Northern Song Dynasty, on the night of August 15th, people all over the city, rich and poor, old and young, put on adult clothes, burn incense and express their wishes to Yue Bai, and pray for the blessing of the moon god. In the Southern Song Dynasty, people gave each other mooncakes as a token of reunion. In some places, there are activities such as dancing grass dragons and building pagodas. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the custom of Mid-Autumn Festival has become more popular, and many places have formed special customs such as burning incense, planting Mid-Autumn Festival trees, lighting tower lanterns, putting sky lanterns, walking on the moon and dancing dragon.

Today, the custom of playing under the moon is far less popular than in the old days. However, feasting to enjoy the moon is still very popular. People drink wine in asking for the moon to celebrate a better life, or wish their relatives far away healthy and happy, and have a wonderful time with their families.

There are many customs and forms of Mid-Autumn Festival, but they all entrust people with infinite love for life and yearning for a better life.

On this day, people eat moon cakes to show "reunion". Moon cakes, also known as Hu cakes, palace cakes, moon groups, harvest cakes, reunion cakes, etc., are offerings to worship the moon god in ancient Mid-Autumn Festival. According to historical records, as early as 3, years ago, in the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, there was a "Taishi cake" in memory of Taishi Wen Zhong. In the Han Dynasty, Zhang Qian sent a mission to the Western Regions, introduced walnuts and sesame seeds, and a round "Hu cake" with walnut kernel as the stuffing appeared. When Tang Gaozong was in China, Li Jing went to the Xiongnu and returned home triumphantly in the Mid-Autumn Festival. At that time, a Tibetan businessman presented Hu cakes, and Li Yuan was very happy. He pointed the Hu cakes at the bright moon in the sky and said, "We should invite toads (the moon) to Hu cakes." Then give it to the ministers to eat. If this is true, this may be the beginning of sharing moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival. However, the word "moon cake" was first found in Hong Ling cakes made by Wu Zimu in the Southern Song Dynasty. Moon cakes are round, and the time when they are endowed with the meaning of reunion is the Ming Dynasty. Liu Dong's "A Brief Introduction to the Scenery of the Imperial Capital" says: "On August 15th, when the moon is sacrificed, its fruit cakes will be round." Tian Rucheng's Notes on Visiting the West Lake said: "August 15th is called Mid-Autumn Festival, and people also take mooncakes as a symbol of reunion." In Miscellaneous Notes of Wan Department, Shen Bang also described the grand occasion of making moon cakes in Beijing during the Mid-Autumn Festival in the Ming Dynasty: all the people in the Fang Dynasty "made moon cakes with different sizes, so they were called moon cakes. The market is even filled with fruit, and the name is different. There is a cake worth hundreds of dollars. " Ingenious cake-making workers are surprisingly renovated, and various patterns are made on the moon cakes. Peng Yunzhang's "Youzhou Folk Songs" describes: "The moon palace symbol is painted as a jade rabbit kiln dwelling; Moon palace cake, made of silver toad purple house shadow. A pair of toad rabbits are all over the world, regretting the year when Chang 'e stole medicine; I can't go back to the cold, and I am in Danyan. "

There is also a custom that people eat moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival to show "reunion". Moon cakes, also known as Hu cakes, palace cakes, moon groups, harvest cakes, reunion cakes, etc., are offerings to worship the moon god in ancient Mid-Autumn Festival. According to historical records, as early as 3, years ago, in the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, there was a "Taishi cake" in memory of Taishi Wen Zhong. In the Han Dynasty, Zhang Qian sent a mission to the Western Regions, introduced walnuts and sesame seeds, and a round "Hu cake" with walnut kernel as the stuffing appeared. When Tang Gaozong was in China, Li Jing went to the Xiongnu and returned home triumphantly in the Mid-Autumn Festival. At that time, a Tibetan businessman presented Hu cakes, and Li Yuan was very happy. He pointed the Hu cakes at the bright moon in the sky and said, "We should invite toads (the moon) to Hu cakes." Then give it to the ministers to eat. If this is true, this may be the beginning of sharing moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival. However, the word "moon cake" was first found in Hong Ling cakes made by Wu Zimu in the Southern Song Dynasty. Moon cakes are round, and the time when they are endowed with the meaning of reunion is the Ming Dynasty. Liu Dong's "A Brief Introduction to the Scenery of the Imperial Capital" says: "On August 15th, when the moon is sacrificed, its fruit cakes will be round." Tian Rucheng's Notes on Visiting the West Lake said: "August 15th is called Mid-Autumn Festival, and people also take mooncakes as a symbol of reunion." In Miscellaneous Notes of Wan Department, Shen Bang also described the grand occasion of making moon cakes in Beijing during the Mid-Autumn Festival in the Ming Dynasty: all the people in the Fang Dynasty "made moon cakes with different sizes, so they were called moon cakes. The market is even filled with fruit, and the name is different. There is a cake worth hundreds of dollars. " Ingenious cake-making workers are surprisingly renovated, and various patterns are made on the moon cakes. Peng Yunzhang's "Youzhou Folk Songs" describes: "The moon palace symbol is painted as a jade rabbit kiln dwelling; Moon palace cake, made of silver toad purple house shadow. A pair of toad rabbits are all over the world, regretting the year when Chang 'e stole medicine; I can't go back to the cold, and I am in Danyan. "

Simple: solve riddles on the lanterns, eating moon cakes, burning lanterns, enjoying the moon, playing with the moon, burning incense, planting Mid-Autumn Festival, lighting tower lanterns, putting sky lanterns, walking on the moon, dancing dragon, crossing Nanpu Bridge, hanging lanterns, inviting the moon aunt when you are in Yue Bai, burning crock, lighting orange lanterns, "watching the meeting", offering sacrifices to the gods of the earth valley, going to the grave to worship the ancestors, and keeping vigil.

● Shanxi

Lu 'an people will entertain their son-in-law in the Mid-Autumn Festival. Datong county moon cakes are called reunion cakes, which are as big as two or three feet, and there is a custom of vigil in mid-autumn night.

● Shaanxi

On mid-autumn night in Xixiang County, men went boating on the cliff, and women also arranged a good banquet. No matter rich or poor, people must eat watermelons, which must be cut into lotus shapes.

● Shanghai

The Mid-Autumn Festival banquet in Shanghai is accompanied by osmanthus honey wine.

● Jiangsu

In addition to moon cakes, Nanjing people must eat osmanthus duck, a famous Jinling dish. "Sweet-scented osmanthus duck" should be in the market when cinnamon is fragrant, fat but not greasy, and delicious. After drinking, you must eat a small piece of sugar taro and pour it with cinnamon pulp. The beauty goes without saying. "Cinnamon pulp" was named after Qu Yuan's "Songs of Chu, Shaosi Ming" and "Helping the North to close its doors and drink cinnamon pulp". Cinnamomum cassia pulp, a sweet osmanthus, was picked around the Mid-Autumn Festival and pickled with sugar and sour plum. Women in the south of the Yangtze River are handy and turn the chanting in poems into delicacies on the table. Nanjing people enjoy the moon with their families, which is called "celebrating reunion", group sitting and drinking is called "full moon", and traveling in the market is called "walking on the moon".

● Zhejiang

The reason why the water shield bass stew in Hangzhou has become a dish at the Mid-Autumn Festival family banquet is not only because the water shield bass is delicious at this time, but also because of the historical fact that Hans Zhang abandoned his official position and returned to his hometown in the Jin Dynasty by borrowing the "water shield and bass" from homesickness. This story has not only become an eternal beauty talk, but also made water shield become homesick.

water shield is a mid-autumn festival family dinner and a seasonal dish soup in August. Water shield, also known as horseshoe grass and watercress, is an aquatic perennial leafy grass plant. The roots, stems and leaves of water shield are not only green and fragrant, fresh and delicious, but also nutritious. Water shield can be picked in spring and autumn, but it is better to pick more water shield in autumn.

● Sichuan

Besides eating moon cakes, Sichuanese also kill ducks, eat sesame cakes, honey cakes and so on in the Mid-Autumn Festival.

In western Sichuan, smoked duck is a must-have item for Mid-Autumn Festival, because the raw duck was grown up and fat and thin at that time. The master selects the ducklings born in the same year, removes all feathers after slaughter, gut them, washes them, removes the wing tips and duck feet, marinates them with salt for one night, scalds them slightly in boiling water until their skins are tight, removes them, puts them in a smoking stove, smokes them with straw until they are brown, takes them out of the oven, marinates them in a pot, and changes the knife to a plate when eating, thus obtaining the smoked duck with golden red color, tender meat and strong smoke smell. The preparation of brine is very important in making smoked duck. Old bittern should be used for bittern, and timely spices, salt and sugar color should be added every time bittern is marinated. When bittern is marinated, the duck should be fully pressed into bittern with heavy objects, and the marinating time is generally about 2 minutes. If the time is too long, the duck meat will be old, which will affect the quality and taste.

● Guangdong

There are many kinds of Mid-Autumn Festival delicacies in Chaoshan, which has a lot to do with the cultural connotation of the Mid-Autumn Festival celebrated by Chaozhou people, the climate in Chaozhou and the agricultural production. It can be mainly divided into three categories: first, cakes, moon cakes from all over Chaoshan, sweet, salty, meaty, assorted and multi-flavored. There are also cakes, soft cakes and cloud cakes, all of which are Mid-Autumn Festival cakes, which are good for hipsters to send relatives. It can be said that it is a custom for hipsters to send moon cakes to relatives. Second, the Mid-Autumn Festival in the tidal zone, when the sky is crisp and the fruit is ripe, pomelo, persimmon, carambola, pineapple, pomegranate, olive and banana are another kind of food for the hipsters in the Mid-Autumn Festival. Third, agricultural taro and pumpkin, which are used by hipsters to make taro paste and melon pulp, are also popular among hipsters. Among them, the Mid-Autumn Moon Cake is an annual traditional food for hipsters. After the Mid-Autumn Festival, there is not a Chaoshan person who doesn't taste the moon cake. Although moon cakes can have various shapes and Chaoshan areas have their own characteristics, they all have the same feature, that is, they are required to be round. Taro, Ciba, etc. are also necessary for hipsters in the Mid-Autumn Festival.

● Guizhou

Guizhou-style moon cakes are different from Cantonese-style moon cakes. They are baked by mixing 5 grams of flour, pork suet, sugar syrup and water

and kneading them into water-oil skins. 25 grams of flour is mixed with lard and rubbed into "dry pastry". After dosing separately, the dry pastry is wrapped in water-oil skin, and the pastry is made into 4 grams of pastry blanks, and then each pastry is pressed into a round cake skin for later use. Bake sesame seeds, melon seeds and walnuts, chop them into fine particles, mix them, add cooked ham powder, jujube, melon paste, cooked flour, rock sugar and salt, and mix well to form a filling.

put a proper amount of stuffing into the skin biscuit, close it down, press it into an oblate shape, put it into an oiled baking pan, and bake it in an oven with a top fire of 21℃ and a bottom fire of 18℃ for 15~2 minutes until the surface is golden and the inside is mature. Golden color, crisp shell and distinct layers; The stuffing is sweet and salty, sweet and refreshing, and rich in nutrition. The master said that the pastry layer should be thin and even, and a piece of white oil paper should be put on the baking tray when the moon cake blank is put into the baking tray.

● Taiwan Province

There is a strong culture of raising water ducks in Kaohsiung County. Before and after the Mid-Autumn Festival, it is the time when the water duck is the most tender. Hakkas in Meinong area often slaughter the water duck and add vegetables in the Mid-Autumn Festival, which has become a local Mid-Autumn Festival feature. In addition to eating moon cakes, the Mid-Autumn Festival in Yilan area also eats a kind of food called "vegetable cakes". The vegetable cake is made of flour and baked with brown sugar in the middle. In Tainan, there is a custom of eating potato on Mid-Autumn Festival.

In recent years, the Mid-Autumn Festival in Taiwan Province has developed a new activity-barbecue.

In addition, a food company in Taiwan Province launched a brand-new concept of Mid-Autumn Snow Moon Cake according to the different needs of consumption levels and the characteristics of the lingering summer heat during the Mid-Autumn Festival. What is snow moon cake? Snow moon cakes are ice cream moon cakes, which are cool and cool, and have a smooth taste. The stuffing is divided into three flavors-champagne sweetheart, Hawaiian party and Vienna coffee. This moon cake is also fully packaged in Japanese exquisite packaging, and the Baolilong packaging box with heat preservation function ensures that the snow moon cake will not melt in a certain period of time.

The Mid-Autumn Festival has a long history. Like other traditional festivals, it has developed slowly. Ancient emperors had a ritual system of offering sacrifices to the sun in spring and the moon in autumn. As early as the book Zhou Li, the word "Mid-Autumn Festival" was recorded. Later, nobles and scholars followed suit. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, they watched and worshipped the bright and round moon in the sky, expressing their feelings. This custom spread to the people and formed a traditional activity. Until the Tang Dynasty, people paid more attention to this custom of sacrificing the moon, and the Mid-Autumn Festival became a fixed festival. The Book of Tang Taizong recorded the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15, which was popular in the Song Dynasty. The legend of Mid-Autumn Festival is very rich, and the fairy tales such as the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon, Wu Gang's felling of laurel and Jade Rabbit's smashing medicine are widely circulated.

One of the Mid-Autumn Festival legends-the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon

According to legend, in ancient times, there were ten days in the sky at the same time, and the crops died in the sun, and the people were miserable. A hero named Hou Yi had infinite strength. He sympathized with the suffering people, climbed to the top of Kunlun Mountain, took full advantage of his divine power, opened his bow, shot down more than nine suns in one breath, and ordered the last sun to rise and fall on time to benefit the people.

Hou Yi was respected and loved by the people. He married a beautiful and kind wife named Chang 'e. In addition to hunting, Hou Yi spent all his time with his wife, and people envied this beautiful and loving couple.

Many people with lofty ideals have come here to study as teachers, and Peng Meng, who has ulterior motives, has also mixed in.

One day, Hou Yi went to Kunlun Mountain to visit friends and seek the Tao. He happened to meet the Queen Mother who passed by and asked her for a pack of elixir. It is said that taking this medicine can immediately ascend to heaven and become immortal. However, Hou Yi could not bear to leave his wife, so he had to give the immortal medicine to Chang 'e for the time being. Chang 'e hid the medicine in the treasure box of the dresser, only to be seen by the villain Peng Meng. He wanted to steal the immortal medicine and become immortal himself.

Three days later, Hou Yi led his followers out hunting, and Peng Meng, who had ulterior motives, pretended to be ill and stayed. Soon after Hou Yi led the crowd away, Peng Meng broke into the backyard of the inner house with a sword in his hand, threatening Chang 'e to hand over the elixir. Chang 'e knew that she was no match for Peng Meng. When she was in a crisis, she made a decisive decision, turned around and opened the treasure box, took out the elixir and swallowed it in one gulp. Chang 'e swallowed the medicine and immediately floated off the ground, rushed out of the window and flew to the sky. Because Chang 'e was concerned about her husband, she flew to the nearest moon and became a fairy.

In the evening, Hou Yi came home, and the maids cried about what happened during the day. Hou Yi was both surprised and angry, and drew his sword to kill the villains. Peng Meng escaped early, and Hou Yi was angry.