With a few weeks to go until the traditional Mid Autumn Festival whichis held on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, Ho Chi Minh City isalready bustling with people buying mooncakes for relatives and friends.
The mooncake is a symbol of Mid Autumn Festival celebrated byVietnamese for centuries. Parents and teachers often tell the real storybehind the cake's history to the children at a very early age.
"Myteacher told us that bakers make round cakes to represent the universeand square cakes to replicate the world," says Phan Hoang Thu Anh, afourth-grade student at Vietnam and Australian International School, whowas recently taught how to make mooncakes by her teacher.
Anhsays that the lotus and green bean paste inside the cakes representnature and people, while the egg symbolises yin and yang, the ancientChinese philosophy of positive and negative forces.
The mooncake comes in two varieties, sweet banh deo (sticky rice cake) and savoury banh nuong (baked cake).
To make banh deo, bakers use quality sticky rice powder, sugar, lotus seeds (or green beans), melon seeds and sweet almonds.
Banh nuong, however, is filled with salted egg yolk, sausage, roast chicken and other traditional ingredients.
"Ilike playing with the mooncake much more than eating. The cake isn'tonly a type of food but also symbolises life and people," she adds.
Anh's teacher, Phan Thi Anh, says:" I think we should teach our children about the cake's cultural values."
Anh and her classmates will celebrate the festival by making the cake at home and then eating it at school.
Thefirst mooncake bakers in Ho Chi Minh City were Chinese-Vietnameseresidents who lived in District 5's China town in the 1940s.
In1960, popular mooncake bakeries, such as Dong Khanh, Long Xuong and DongHung Vien, began to deliver and sell their products to other southernand central provinces.
Over the years, bakers have gainedexperience and after experimenting with their own ingredients, likeblack beans, taro, salangane bird nest and shark fins, have created manydifferent styles of mooncakes.
"Because of the mooncakes'symbolism, Vietnamese families always use the cake to worship theirancestors during the mid-autumn occasion," says Nguyen Thi Ngoc, aseller of Kinh Do Food Corporation, which offers 2,800 tonnes ofmooncakes this season, an increase of 15 percent compared to lastseason.
Ngoc says that Saigonese enjoy mooncakes produced bybakeries like Kinh Do and Nhu Lan because of "their original Vietnamesetaste".
But many housewives still make homemade cakes every year for their family and friends.
"Making homemade cakes means I can put my own originality into them," says Tran Thi Anh Linh, a resident of District 5.
Linh, 65, learnt making the mooncake from her mother, a Chinese-Vietnamese woman who married a Vietnamese.
"Today,people are willing to buy the mooncake two months before the festivalbegins. This trend creates more opportunities for bakers andconfectionery companies," she says.
Browse through any market orbakery around the city at this time and you will come across a varietyof mooncakes, including those made by luxury hotels.
According toBibica Corporation, one of the city's largest mooncake producers, thecompany plans to provide more than 530 tonnes of mooncakes thisfestival, an increase of 15 percent over last year.
"Apart fromselling our products in Ho Chi Minh City, we have opened 12,000 outletsin the country," says a representative of Bibica.
In June, KinhDo exported more than 100,000 mooncakes to the US and has prepared tosell the cakes to foreign markets like France, Australia and Cambodia.
In northern provinces, mooncakes under the brandnames like Hai Ha, Huu Nghi and Hanoi, are popular among customers.-VNA
The mooncake is a symbol of Mid Autumn Festival celebrated byVietnamese for centuries. Parents and teachers often tell the real storybehind the cake's history to the children at a very early age.
"Myteacher told us that bakers make round cakes to represent the universeand square cakes to replicate the world," says Phan Hoang Thu Anh, afourth-grade student at Vietnam and Australian International School, whowas recently taught how to make mooncakes by her teacher.
Anhsays that the lotus and green bean paste inside the cakes representnature and people, while the egg symbolises yin and yang, the ancientChinese philosophy of positive and negative forces.
The mooncake comes in two varieties, sweet banh deo (sticky rice cake) and savoury banh nuong (baked cake).
To make banh deo, bakers use quality sticky rice powder, sugar, lotus seeds (or green beans), melon seeds and sweet almonds.
Banh nuong, however, is filled with salted egg yolk, sausage, roast chicken and other traditional ingredients.
"Ilike playing with the mooncake much more than eating. The cake isn'tonly a type of food but also symbolises life and people," she adds.
Anh's teacher, Phan Thi Anh, says:" I think we should teach our children about the cake's cultural values."
Anh and her classmates will celebrate the festival by making the cake at home and then eating it at school.
Thefirst mooncake bakers in Ho Chi Minh City were Chinese-Vietnameseresidents who lived in District 5's China town in the 1940s.
In1960, popular mooncake bakeries, such as Dong Khanh, Long Xuong and DongHung Vien, began to deliver and sell their products to other southernand central provinces.
Over the years, bakers have gainedexperience and after experimenting with their own ingredients, likeblack beans, taro, salangane bird nest and shark fins, have created manydifferent styles of mooncakes.
"Because of the mooncakes'symbolism, Vietnamese families always use the cake to worship theirancestors during the mid-autumn occasion," says Nguyen Thi Ngoc, aseller of Kinh Do Food Corporation, which offers 2,800 tonnes ofmooncakes this season, an increase of 15 percent compared to lastseason.
Ngoc says that Saigonese enjoy mooncakes produced bybakeries like Kinh Do and Nhu Lan because of "their original Vietnamesetaste".
But many housewives still make homemade cakes every year for their family and friends.
"Making homemade cakes means I can put my own originality into them," says Tran Thi Anh Linh, a resident of District 5.
Linh, 65, learnt making the mooncake from her mother, a Chinese-Vietnamese woman who married a Vietnamese.
"Today,people are willing to buy the mooncake two months before the festivalbegins. This trend creates more opportunities for bakers andconfectionery companies," she says.
Browse through any market orbakery around the city at this time and you will come across a varietyof mooncakes, including those made by luxury hotels.
According toBibica Corporation, one of the city's largest mooncake producers, thecompany plans to provide more than 530 tonnes of mooncakes thisfestival, an increase of 15 percent over last year.
"Apart fromselling our products in Ho Chi Minh City, we have opened 12,000 outletsin the country," says a representative of Bibica.
In June, KinhDo exported more than 100,000 mooncakes to the US and has prepared tosell the cakes to foreign markets like France, Australia and Cambodia.
In northern provinces, mooncakes under the brandnames like Hai Ha, Huu Nghi and Hanoi, are popular among customers.-VNA
