Mid-Autumn Festival: some people are absorbed in eating moon cakes, others "dislike" the sweetness of moon cakes

Although moon cakes only include baked cakes and sticky rice cakes, behind that is a lot of debate about which cake is better.

One early autumn afternoon, I pulled out a wooden chair and sat next to a friend of mine, inviting her to eat a piece of white moon cake with a delicious mixed salted egg filling. But surprisingly, she refused because she was afraid of getting fat.

Talking further, I learned that she was having a headache choosing the right cake to give to her relatives on both sides as well as her husband's family.

“In my family, everyone has their own preferences. The adults in my family don’t like to eat cakes and candies in general. Some people like to eat moon cakes with lotus seeds or red beans, while others try to find a cake with mixed fillings like Chinese sausage and pumpkin jam like in the old days, and refuse to eat mixed fillings like today.” - Ms. Pham Thi Quynh Tram (32 years old - lecturer of English department at Maritime University - Hai Phong) answered.

"So do you buy moon cakes for the elderly?" - I asked.

“No, usually not because everyone prefers mooncakes because they are very sweet. The mooncake crust is sweet and the filling is also sweet. In the past, people used to eat mooncakes with tea to reduce the sweetness,” she continued. “Mooncakes have more diverse fillings, both sweet and salty, so they are easier to eat. The mooncake crust is soft, the filling is soft, children can eat it.”

The crust of the mooncake is very complicated and meticulous, requiring hours of cooking sugar water, mixing it with flour, and baking it. During the baking process, the cake is also very easy to crack and overflow with filling. The sticky rice cake is simpler, requiring only mixing sugar water with roasted sticky rice flour.

It was thought that the speed and convenience would make this white cake popular, but banh nuong is still the favorite dish of many diners. To clarify this, Travellive reporter decided to interview Mr. Nguyen Tien Dung (34 years old - IT staff and owner of the fanpage channel specializing in introducing delicious restaurants 2 FAT GUYS - Ho Chi Minh): "In Saigon, banh nuong has fallen into oblivion. Just kidding, I find banh nuong too sweet because they put too much sugar in the cake crust. I haven't eaten any banh nuong for years. All around me are banh nuong with mung bean and banh nuong with mixed ingredients."

As for the fillings, moon cakes are very diverse from mixed fillings, roasted chicken, shark fin, green beans, lotus paste, red beans and the same goes for sticky rice cakes. However, with sticky rice cakes, because the crust is too sweet, not all fillings have a suitable flavor for this cake.

Travellive reporter interviewed another cake expert to see if he prefers banh nuong or banh chung. Mr. Nguyen Duc Long (34 years old - founder of The Patisseries Lab - a European bakery in Hanoi) said: "I only like to eat banh nuong because banh chung is too sweet and boring to eat."

With some traditional moon cake shops, they often arrange a box of four cakes, of which three are baked cakes and one is sticky rice cake for variety.

As for Mr. Binh An (27 years old - English teacher in Ho Chi Minh), he thinks that if the mooncakes were less sweet, the flavor would be more wonderful: "I like to bake mixed ingredients. Mooncakes are too sweet, eating them is all sugar. Mooncakes that are less sweet like mochi cakes are delicious because both are chewy."

All the interviewees chose banh chung and shared the same opinion that banh chung is very sweet, so Travellive reporter contacted a person with deep knowledge of cuisine in general to clarify his question.

Talking with Mr. Bui Ngoc Khoi (29 years old - food photographer and owner of the group I want to Eat Well in Hanoi), I understood more about the reason why moon cakes are often sweet, especially sticky rice cakes.

“I prefer baked goods because they can be made less sweet. In the past, making a lot of sweet cakes to keep them for a long time was a great idea. But now food preservation conditions are quite good, so it is not necessary to accept super sweet cakes anymore,” Mr. Khoi laughed.

Since ancient times, sugar has been a natural food preservative. In the past, there were many sweet and sugary foods such as jams, dried fruits, etc., mainly to prolong the shelf life of fresh fruits such as apricots, plums, squash, coconuts, kumquats, etc.

The reason is usually because the cake is not cooked directly but is just a mixture of roasted sticky rice flour with normal sugar water and the filling is sometimes both salty and sweet, so if you don't add a lot of sugar, the cake will easily get moldy and spoiled.

“If the mooncakes were made smaller, like jackfruit seeds, I would probably like them better. Usually, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, I buy mooncakes of 120 grams or less and Japanese Wagashi, and bake them all. Wagashi are still mooncakes with bean fillings like ours, but they are beautiful. If only Vietnamese mooncakes were as beautiful and adorable, I would buy them right away,” he continued to share.

Traditional moon cakes in Vietnam have always been an indispensable gift for every Mid-Autumn Festival, but they are gradually becoming outdated and are less preferred by diners. Nowadays, thanks to modern technology, moon cakes have been reduced in sweetness to compete with the giant moon cake market that is increasingly fiercely competitive.

Ha Chuu