Saturday, September 22, 2018

Moon My Cakes - The Annual Rant!!!




For all the talk of being cultural, the Mooncake festival is one that is disappointing year in year out.


It seems the festival is about, now, which new flavour can we ingest this year. Actually, just look at any restaurant menu, and then try to make it into a moon cake.

There is no respect, there is no tradition left. How about a prawn mee moon cake, how about a putu mayam moon cake? Why not?

 Well, every year I brace myself for what will be the new fangled flavours for mooncakes. Ta-dah ... last year takes the cake (pun intended). Its Angry Birds mooncakes!  I think its a brilliant marketing strategy, its taking China/HK by the proverbial storm. Is that raining bird shit ... no, its just kids throwing their Angry Birds mooncakes in the air for effect. Now we even get Nasi Lemak ones. Damn it, this year we do actually have nasi lemak mooncakes!!!

Each passing year, we get further away from tradition. Is this fusion or variety or just plain stupidity. I am talking about mooncakes. The whole thing marks of a scam.

Who doesn't know that the cost of a mooncake is minimal really compared to their exorbitant selling price. Why do you think almost every restaurant sells them? There must be a global collusion to sell these over priced things - its a Chinese mafia I tell you.

At best, the mooncake festival can be an excuse for family togetherness. The actual reasons and history for how the festival started are pretty flimsy. Its more stuffs of legends and fairytales than rooted in reality. But anyways, since the Chinese culture has no solid God/religion, where everything goes (the world is full of deities and
buddhas as the saying goes), hearsay and stories evolved into things cultural, which in turn becomes tradition, and finally morphs into a marketing extravaganza.



Since it is stuff of legends and fairytales, its not rooted deeply in anything really, and is open for interpretation. It used to be just lotus paste and black sesame. Throw in the egg yolks if you want. NOW you have:
lotus with dried sambal; green tea with pu'er; dragonfruit with blackcurrent; spirulina; the omochis; the ice cream ones; the durian paste; pandan sweet corn; capuccino; yam gingko nut; chocolate strawberry fondue; the various types of skin covers; oreo; chocolate walnut brownie; charcoal powder with wolfberry; Charcoal Infused Mocha Milk Tea; Snow Skin Japanese Potato with Custard; Fragrant Corn with Soft Yolk; Royal Jade Jelly; Nutty Chocolate with Yolk; Snow Skin Raspberry; Bluberry; Snow Skin Silky Vanilla Chestnut; Snow Skin Black Sesame; Green Beans with Cheese; chocolate peanut praline; blueberry blackcurrant cheese; chestnut Japanese jingsa; .... enough already... we are all losing the plot!!! Heck, I can even create an apom balik black sesame eggyolk ikan bilis flat moon cake... its all marketing baby!

Go back to the roots of the tradition. Why do we have Mooncake Festival? Its for family togetherness, its really for the kids ... I remember as kids I loved the festival, the lanterns and candles. I liked that connection, knowing that my dad and grand dad probably played with similar lanterns, similar candles and ate the same kind of mooncakes 50 or 100 years ago. That's the tradition that connects, and the kind you want to pass on to the next generation.





Not that anything about the mooncake thing is true, however, its cultural and it carries values, things we want to pass on - whether the festival is rooted in true events is not material anymore.

Hence, please you bloody marketers,
do not cheapen the tradition. We want the connectivity. I will still want to buy the basic lotus paste or black sesame... and also the baked fish-shapes / pig-shaped mooncake biscuits ... because they all remind me of the past which I longed to remember and the people I do not wish to forget.


Of course, variations is a strong strategy to differentiate in a product/event that has "almost zero veracity" in truth or religious text. You don't find the Catholics changing ONE IOTA of the sacrament through the ages. Hence differentiation will continue cause no one cares, everyone is out to stand out and make money or get the latest "bling".

This year let me give you my HAZE Mooncakes, looks like smog, taste like freshly burnt tropical forest with a strong charcoal aftertaste - happy moonlike festival!!!

11 comments:

Raison D'etre said...

Used to get some FOC from my granny's next door neighbor.

Alas both of them has since passed on, and with them the tradition of passing over goodies over the fence too are gone.

I wonder if the original mooncake (without any fillings) tastes the same as that of AhNya's?

Born2Reign said...

Why are you surprised?

A glass of water used to be free, now costs 50c to 80c

Buka puasa buffer used to be RM48 per pax, now about RM98 pax

In my days, piano lessons were RM20 per month, today RM100 - 200 p.month

Did I ever highlight that in 1994 the fresh graduates pay was RM1500 equiv to 1.6oz gold,
in 2009 fresh grad pay is RM2000, only 0.58oz gold?

Don't blame the mooncake seller or manufacturer, they are already employing lots of cheap labour.

Blame our Zeti and BNM for printing lots of toilet paper Ringgit and devalue our money to remain "competitive" but unproductive.

Calvin said...

Now they are selling mooncakes way before the actual festival date. I find it weird to be eating mooncakes now during the Ghost Month (Chinese July). Cant they start selling at least after 14th July to respect the occassion and to be in the spirit of the festival?

solomon said...

This is smallish in value compared to our car price. Vendors should emphasize more on the value of the festive instead of changing the pastry in the mooncake.

bonny b said...

The Malaysian mooncake scene is regulated by a cartel of businessmen, who meet every year to set the minimum retail price. As we can see, the public is resisting strongly once the price broke above RM10 per piece, as evidenced by the 20% discounts given freely this year. For me, I stopped eating it in protest. A boycott will surely break this cartel.

Unknown said...

Folks, let us get back to the basics of this festival = it's more an occasion for reunion (Dhuan Yuen)with family, rather than on the emphasis of giving away some boxes of mooncake.

Let those businessmen buy up mooncakes in the market as gifts to their customers/clients.

Again, it is a Supply-Demand dynamics.

jeeralang said...

hey, i remember reading this rant last year! thanks for another year of rants and raves.
anyway, hope it's a happy occasion for you, with family and loved ones.

Gorgeous said...

Is it Mooncake Festival or Lantern Festival?

Just because you eat mooncake or play lantern doesn't mean that it is called your kind of festival.

If one bothers to remember how it came about it should be called the Mid-Autumn Festival.

ahsiang said...

yea, it should be Mid-Autumn festival la.
Otherwise we should have ketupat festival, muruku festival, and turkey festival(?).

richard said...

Didn't buy any this year. Agree with you.

Tiger said...

The solution to the problem? Get people to learn how to make moon cakes.