Never tried them. Do they taste anything like regular cake?

They are nothing like moon pies. They have a thin crust that is put into a form then filled with a normally sweet filling made from various things. While some areas of the world do sell them at all times of the year they are fresh only starting at this time of the year. Just to give you an idea of what they look like and the fillings that they may have. https://www.chinahighlights.com/festivals/mooncake.htm

I've never heard of either.

I can't imagine the attraction of eating a sugary sweet and drinking a sugary carbonated drink at the same time. Yuck.

We give moon cakes to our Chinese airline customers who are in town (Seattle) during the Autumn Festival. I can't say I care for the ones I've tried, but I also didn't grow up eating them either. When we give them to our customers, we usually do it during a dinner. Our customers are always touched by the gesture.

maifleur01, are you Chinese?

I grew up with moon pies. Never heard of moon cakes. I have never been very enamored with moon pies.

Not Chinese just a foodie. I try anything once but moon cakes I eat as breakfast with coffee and some fruit.

Had a Chinese friend long ago and this was a big festival. There would be gatherings and she brought me some of the foods. They were too beautiful to eat, they believe food should be a feast to the eye as well as the body. This lady could make these beautiful things but was always asking for cooking advice (American style). She once tried to make meat loaf from ground beef she had cooked. She had run hot water through the cooked beef to rid it of some fat. Once her very young son had asked for a table spread like 'on TV' for Thanksgiving. I told her to order that, not attempt to cook it all at one time. She was brilliant, had two master degrees and I just loved her.

My neighbor across the street gave me some a couple of years ago and told me about the Harvest Moon. She and her husband loved the moon cakes. I appreciate that she shared with me. They apparently are labor intensive to make. They aren't my thing, but I've found that most of the Chinese pastries aren't. The moon cakes were sweet, but the flavors were more subtle. I prefer flavors that are more distinct.

I have never heard of a moon cake. I grew up with moon pies too but never cared for them. RC cola either.

Never heard of a moon cake. Moon pies, on the other hand, are in every 7-11 and Wawa and Royal Farms....literally everywhere. Have not had one in many many years. Never liked RC cola - ugh.

Years ago I read about moon cakes in Gourmet magazine -- beautiful photographs. I've since tried a few but can't say I enjoy the taste.

Moon pies, on the other hand, are a sweet delicious treat that I've enjoyed since childhood. They used to make a small size that was perfect for my daughter's lunch box. I like chocolate or banana flavor, don't like the salted caramel. I see them in the frozen food aisle now, are they filled with ice cream instead of marshmallow?

You brought back some fun memories for me. I can't eat any sugar anymore but I was a foodie when I could. :) My favourite filling was the black sesame seed one. It's not listed on your site but I found the recipe for it here.

https://www.carolinescooking.com/chinese-mooncakes-snow-skin-mooncakes/ 

Aw, such memories that you bring back (and Tao will come remind me shortly, I'm sure)! I like any that are shared by friends.

I don't mean this snidely, elmer, at all... how can you live on the coast and not have heard of something so Asian? My friends there were from all walks (Mexican, Caucasian, African-American, and loads of Asians). Very high population of Asians. I'm highly surprised!

"snidely elmer" - cute! hahaha!

I was wondering the same thing, Rob.

I have never heard of them. I have never seen them offered in any of the Chinese restaurants I have been to.

marylimi you would never find them at Chinese restaurants as they are normally given as gifts. Most are too big for one person unless like me you eat them as a meal. Look at your local oriental grocery or if you are lucky enough to have one a oriental bakery.

I was also surprised not to see the poppy seed one. I do not remember seeing the black sesame seed ones. My other treat which I can get all year round is a Korean black sesame/flecks of seaweed rolled up wafer. I call them cookies. Just a hint of sweetness but great crunch.

I grew up enjoying moon cakes every autumn. Due to the delicacy's expense, though, 'enjoy' meant perhaps a sliver or two. It was such a rich, dense, sweet treat, a sliver or two was quite enough!

Mooncakes generally measure ~ 3" to 3-1/2" in diameter, ~ 1-1/2" tall.

The higher quality/priced version will have an egg yolk (usually salted, pre-cooked duck egg) at the center:

My favorite was/is the lotus paste version. I find the bean paste variety too sweet and gritty.

Moon cakes are generally sold in boxes of four, but prices per box varied widely: from $18 to $75+ (yup...not a typo). I always considered this the fruitcake of Chinese culture, with boxes being passed back and forth among family and friends. One's social standing purportedly increased with the dollar value of the box of mooncakes one gifted. And if we ever received one of the more inexpensive boxes, the giver's family was met with a behind-closed-doors "tsk-tsk, poor dears couldn't afford more."

^^^ I pieced together all of this based on my mom's comments and practices over the years. It's been decades since my mom's been caught up in the fray of keeping up social graces: any more, she's perfectly fine with waiting for festival season to be over, then hitting the half-off mooncake sales with her friend. :) My kids (now adults) are on the receiving end of Grandma's largesse, by the boxful!

Jumping onto maifleur's comment, mooncakes should start making their appearance now (or fairly soon) in Asian grocery stores. As they're a seasonal item, they're usually displayed prominently on tables towards the front of the store.

rob, I like the word choice, whether deliberate or not.

It's an interesting question. The Silicon Valley workplace is highly diverse (though with a small number of African Americans) and has much higher numbers in percentage and absolute numbers of more national origins groups and recent immigrants than the region or certainly the nation has. Same is true when out in public. But as has always been true of recent immigrants, they tend to self-segregate socially and assimilation takes time. Not always but it can start with the children of the adult immigrants, born and raised or at least a product of schools here.

California has long been more diverse than the rest of the country but that's become much more true in the last 30 years. In the face of that, there have long been many entrenched Mexican/Hispanic influences embedded in California culture. Certainly during most of my lifetime though such population numbers are much higher now than before. Everyone knows about Dia de Muertos and Cinco de Mayo, etc. But the same is not true of traditions of groups newly arrived in large numbers.

The largest newly arrived ethnic groups in this area are Chinese, Vietnamese, and those from the Indian sub-continent (regardless of country or religion).

I have friends and former colleagues of all stripes, shapes and sizes. There are people of Chinese ancestry who have been here for generations and I'd say my Chinese friends are of this background. They're assimilated to having habits and practices that are "American" and they tend not to socialize with the more recent arrivals, having little in common with them.

So I do know a bit about Eid, Diwali, Lunar New Year, the ethnic diversity of Viet Nam, and many other things, but not Moon Cakes.

nickel_kg

They used to make a small size that was perfect for my daughter's lunch box.

They still do. I see them everywhere.

I like chocolate or banana flavor, don't like the salted caramel.

Banana was always the best one to me too. Never saw a salted caramel though!

I see them in the frozen food aisle now, are they filled with ice cream instead of marshmallow?

No that is a different treat, made by the same company. Moonpies are still sold in their original version, everywhere - in the southeast at least. :-)

I took a Google drive and found that there are a very wide variety of shapes, sizes, ingredients, etc, of moon cakes and like most of Chinese cuisine, it varies regionally. So what was traditional to any one family could and would vary from family to family, depending on where in that very large country the family originated.

The article I posted earlier mentioned that there were also savory ones but I have never found them in the stores I go to. Contrary to javiwa's comment about the center being salted egg the ones I have found in the store have yellow bean paste which is thicker than the surrounding filling. I do like this type but find that the center can be very dry and crumbly. I too used to go to the after holiday sales and stock up. Even though they are considered seasonal they can last several months if wrappers are not damaged.

maifleur: My mom immediately freezes her BOBO finds, and they're still yummy after many months. I'll have to ask my mom about the yellow bean paste center ones -- she might scoff and call them knock-offs (of the 'authentic' ones with the duck egg centers). I recall years ago, her bemoaning the fact that the price of salted duck eggs had increased. The egg centers are indeed dry and crumbly, so I wonder if the bean paste centers are trying to mimic the texture. A bite incorporating both lotus paste + egg yolk satisfied that sweet-salty craving.

Oops...we had something entirely different that I thought of immediately when I read the title. They were regular cake, cut into the shape of a crescent moon and iced. Only one bakery in town made them, either white cake with orange icing or chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Both were about the size of a cupcake.

I think I have seen them at Asian supermarkets. I believe my daughter likes them, because she goes with me sometimes. She is more adventuresome about food than I am.

I am not wild about Moon Pies....but RC Cola is my drink of choice, except it doesn't taste as good in the plastic bottles as it did in the glass bottles when I was a kid.

I broke down and went to my favorite store, 888, and as usual went on a spending spree. They only had one type of the brands I normally buy. I did notice that all of the lotus paste had the yellow bean paste but none of the others. One is very interesting and would be more to the taste of most people. By Rimei Food it is called Lava Custard Mooncake. The first one I had with my afternoon coffee was a dense chocolate cake filled with a runny chocolate center. The box states that it is mixed. It has three types, plain custard, chocolate, and purple yam moon cakes. They are only about 1/3rd the size of normal round cakes. I will have to go back in October to hit the sales. I do not like freezing sweets as I find that they often sweat when returned to room temperature which to me gives them an odd flavor.

I've never heard of them. My exchange student from Taiwan bought some 100 year eggs and tried to get me to eat one. NOPE! I'll try almost any new food but some things I refuse to eat. He took them to school and had his friends try them.

So many foods are an acquired taste, and 100-year eggs is definitely in that category, Kathsgrdn. Growing up, we ate 'as we were told' and really didn't question anything. Our parents didn't give us any inkling we had an option to refuse. Sounds heavy handed, but as an adult, I'm grateful: there pretty much isn't any food I won't try, and that just makes life so much more fun.

"Eat as you're told" is no more thoughtful than "do what you're told". It's easy to be bossy with kids but it's not usually the best approach. Especially as kids get older and most especially with teenagers, it often fosters rebellious behavior and ignores the fact that different people (kids included) have different taste preferences.

For food with us, it was "you can't say you don't like it unless you try it first". 80% of the time, that worked, even with younger ones. With no adverse feelings or reactions.

All of our kids are adventurous eaters with few dislikes, just as their parents (me and my wife) are.

Can't say I disagree with your entire first paragraph, Elmer. Paragraph 3 is pretty much how DH and I operated with our three.