Moon cake, also known as Hu cake, palace cake, small cake, moon group, reunion cake, etc., is the ancient mid autumn festival offerings to worship the moon god, the Mid Autumn Festival to eat moon cakes, enjoy the moon is an indispensable program on this day. There is no exact record of the formation of the custom of eating moon cakes on the Mid Autumn Festival, but there are mainly three kinds of folklore. What is the origin of eating moon cakes? Let's see.
However, the ancients have left numerous beautiful legends.
The first is the moon cake, which originated from the Tang Dynasty army's Zhujie food.
During the reign of emperor Gaozu of Tang Dynasty, General Li Jing won the victory in the expedition against Xiongnu, and returned triumphantly on August 15. At that time, a Tubo who was in business offered cakes to the emperor of the Tang Dynasty. Gao Zu Li Yuan took the gorgeous cake box, took out the round cake, pointed to the moon in the sky with a smile and said, "we should invite toads to hubing. Then he shared the cake with the ministers. Since then, the custom of eating moon cakes has been formed.
The second kind of four beauties Yang Guifei and moon cake's' predestination 'is undoubtedly the deepest.
It is said that on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, Yang Guifei and Li Longji, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, enjoyed the moon together. On the table beside them were not only grapes, watermelons, pomegranates and other fruits, but also more than a dozen kinds of cakes, including sweet and salty ones, some with stuffing and without stuffing, square ones and also round ones (cakes were called square in the ancients and round in cakes). Yang Guifei took one of the cakes with stuffing and tasted it. She found that it tasted very good. So she greatly appreciated it. She asked what the name of the cake was. Who knows, no one here can name it. He called the chef who made the cake, but he didn't know his name. Therefore, Li Longji said with the crowd, "let's have a name for the lady.". 'the imperial concubine looked down at the round cake in her hand, then looked up at the bright moon in the sky, and casually said, 'please call it moon cake. "Everyone cheered together, so there was a" moon cake "specially for the moon watching on August 15.
There is another way of saying about this story: on the 15th of August, when appreciating the moon, Yang Guifei picked up a piece of cake. After eating it, she felt very sweet and asked what kind of cake it was. The first person said it was called Hu cake. The imperial concubine asked why it was called. The servant replied, "because it was made by the Hu people, it came from the land of Hu, so it is called Hu cake. However, both Li Longji and Yang Guifei felt that the name was not pleasant to hear, so Yang Guifei said: 'I'll call it moon cake in the future. '
The third legend is that eating moon cakes on the mid autumn festival began in the Yuan Dynasty.
At that time, the cruel rule of the ruling class of the Yuan Dynasty made the broad masses of people unbearable and rose up one after another. The imperial court certainly would not let its own land be overthrown so simply, so it was very difficult to carry out large-scale search activities, and it was very difficult to transmit information among the local uprising forces. Later, Liu Bowen thought of an idea and ordered people to fill the cake with notes about the uprising on the 15th night of August, and then sent people to send them to the uprising armies in different places. On the 15th of August, the local rebel forces responded at the same time and started a nationwide peasant uprising.
Later, when Zhu Yuanzhang won the world, he gave an instruction that all the officers and men would enjoy the people's happiness in the coming August 15, and reward the ministers with "moon cakes", which were used to transmit information secretly when they started the army. Since then, the custom of eating moon cakes on the Mid Autumn Festival has spread among the people.