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Mid-Autumn Festival

Mooncakes cut into wedges and shared under the fullest moon of the year.

Beijing Longtan Lake Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern Festival, Erlong Opera Pearl
Photo: Shizhao, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

What is eaten for Mid-Autumn Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the full moon of the eighth lunar month. Families gather outdoors to look at the moon and share mooncakes. A mooncake is a dense round pastry, pressed in a carved mould, with a filling of lotus seed or red bean paste and often a salted egg yolk in the centre for the moon. It is rich, so it is cut into wedges and eaten with tea. Pomelos are in season and are peeled at the table, along with taro and water caltrops. In Vietnam the night belongs to children and their lanterns.

The dishes

MooncakeDense filled pastry, cut in wedges and shared.TeaCuts the richness of the cakes.

Also part of it, and being written: Pomelo (In season and eaten under the moon.), Taro (Steamed or boiled, an old food of the festival.), Chinese mitten crab (Hairy crab season opens around the festival near Shanghai.).

More dishes made for Mid-Autumn Festival

Red bean pasteVegan 🇯🇵 Japan and 2 moreSweet or plain paste made from boiled adzuki beans, used in East Asian desserts Sweet or dessert, Snacks, Tea time
About this page

Written by the Thali desk with AI assistance. Background: "Mid-Autumn Festival" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from family to family and place to place. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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