Moon Rabbits and Frog Eyes - Who Knew?

Right on cue, the moon was exceptionally round and large. Families and friends gathered in the parks and in homes, laughing and visiting together. The enduring and evolving Moon Festival was upon us, and it was time to celebrate.

中秋節 (Zhōngqiū jié), or the Mid-Autumn Festival, is a public holiday in Taiwan. It's a Lunar event, so this year it was on October 1st - 3rd. Stores and government offices were closed. School was out. After a quiet morning with nearly no one riding the subway, (see Elder Coffey in a rare near-empty subway platform), people began to be on the move – traveling to get to their family homes or to visit with friends. The Mid-Autumn Festival, or the Moon Festival as it is also called, is the 2^nd most popular holiday in Taiwan. 

We were invited by one of our English group students to share the evening with her at a local neighborhood park to celebrate. We brought mooncakes and she brought a pomelo - the traditional treats of the holiday. A pomelo is similar to a grapefruit, but less bitter and less juicy. The full moon just started peeking out over the buildings when we first arrived at the park.

The Moon Festival began around 3,000 years ago in China, with the moon being worshipped for bringing bountiful harvests. Traditionally, moon cakes are eaten as families gather together, enjoy watching the harvest moon, and celebrating together. Mooncakes have a long tradition with various accounts of how they began, but largely today they symbolize family reunions.

 

Mooncakes are small square or round pastries filled with a variety of sweet pastes – often made with lotus bean, red bean, jujube or other sweet pastes, sometimes centered with a cooked egg yolk, symbolizing the moon. Their taste is not overly relished by Western palates, but we have become accustomed to the red bean or lotus bean varieties, minus any egg yolk, please!

Modern flavors have begun to emerge as the holiday continues its evolution. Cranberry, pineapple and even chocolate fillings are finding their way on shelves. Frozen ice cream mooncakes are appearing in freezer shelves. They are often given away as gifts.  Here is part of our mooncake and pastry collection from students and church members:

 

                                                                                           Cranberry filling in this one!

While in Western tradition there is a “Man in the Moon”, in Taiwan it is the beautiful but banished Goddess of Immortality, Chang’e, along with her friend – a rabbit – to keep her company. So if you look closely, you can sometimes see the resemblance of the rabbit on the moon, bringing delight to children as they are told the story of how Chang’e and her friend got to the moon in the first place.

Courtesy of flickr.com Mitch Huang

Aside from holiday treats like mooncakes, one of the seemingly most popular items here in Taiwan are drinks. Drinks are everywhere, and often become the sole or main part of a busy person's lunch. Soda is not much of a thing here - it is rarely available outside of grocery stores or full restaurants and I rarely see people drinking it. But fruit drinks, coffees and teas of all kinds are definitely at the top of the popularity chart. Drink stands are on nearly every street, with people lining up to grab a refreshing "pick me up" throughout the day. 

"Tea" in Taiwan can come from a large variety of plant and plant parts. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we don't drink tea, as in from the tea plant itself. But "mild drinks" that are more like infused water are a popular option here. Most seem to be from fruits or flowers such as Wintermelon tea, Chrysanthemum tea, or fruit drinks made from apples, passion fruit, rose hips, peaches and oranges. The variety is stunning.

Other popular beverages come from seeds and border on the "herbal medicine" edge. A senior missionary sister recently bought for us the following three herbal medicine seeds for making our own "mild drinks". The top seeds are Shan Fen Yuen (sweet basil seeds, also known as Frog Eyes), lower right is what she called Fried Wheat (though it may be barley), and lower left is Jue Ming Zi, otherwise known as Cassia Tea in English. 

These mix up to make healthful drinks that can reportedly do everything from treat rheumatism, remove your "liver heat", and help you lose weight. You'll also have happy kidneys! And they're all caffeine free. What's there not to love? 

A sampling of each was an interesting experiment in culture and palate. Here's my experiment with the "frog eyes"! I put some of the sweet basil seeds in warm  water, and watched them swell up quickly with gelatinous outer coverings that made them look like - well - like frog eyes!  These are tasteless,  caffeine free little balls that simply provide interest to drinks such as light lemon water. They are very popular here. 

So what's not to love? Um - the taste! While the frog eyes were tasteless, the other two seeds, simmered for several minutes in water, produced bitter drinks that were only palatable (for me at least) with loads of sugar - and then you kind of defeat any health benefit from it!  It must require an acquired taste! 

So my preference, if I had to choose, is the frog eyes, mainly because there is no taste and I can add them to any fruit drink I want. The wheat drink and cassia seed drink were just not quite my "cup of tea"!