Text | Xu Yufen
Mid-Autumn Festival, as a traditional festival in Chinese, has a sense of ceremony, and eating moon cakes is the first one. As early as a month ago, many citizens began to buy moon cakes.
What are the new "flower heads" of moon cakes this year?
We have seen in supermarkets, hotels and online e-commerce platforms in Ningbo that this year, the moon cake market continues to compete around "face value" and "taste" on the basis of inheritance, and some moon cakes have made great changes in appearance and taste.
Recently, in Ningbo subway station, bus station and city LED screen, a crispy moon cake with high face value and chubby appearance has attracted the attention of many consumers.
Through the advertising screen, it is found that the vertical section of this crispy moon cake is semi-circular, the skin is crisp, and the stuffing is lotus egg yolk, black truffle, blueberry Q-heart cheese, red bean paste strawberry, etc. Compared with the traditional flat moon cake, the shape is more like egg yolk crisp.
In supermarkets such as Sanjiang, RT Mart and Boxma in Ningbo, we can see that all kinds of mooncake gift boxes occupy the C position of supermarkets.
From the craft schools, there are Guangdong, Soviet, Hong Kong, Nanjing and other schools. The price is between 50 yuan and 400 yuan, mostly around 200 yuan. According to the relevant person in charge of Sanjiang Supermarket, consumers began to purchase moon cakes from mid-August, among which Cantonese-style moon cakes were the most purchased, followed by Soviet-style moon cakes. Young people prefer new explosive products such as flowing milk yellow moon cakes and iced moon cakes in Hong Kong-style moon cakes.
Among the bulk moon cakes, the "old foundation" moon cakes are the main ones.
"People in Ningbo generally have a special liking for the traditional flavors of sesame, moss, passion fruit and bean paste. Now people eat moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is not only a custom, but also a feeling." Some customers even said directly that the "Bai Yueguang" in Ningbo people’s mind is the seaweed moon cake with salty taste and fresh taste.
In terms of taste, with the changes of the times, the taste of moon cakes is constantly innovating, and many trendy moon cakes have appeared. Such as milk tea flavored Taoshan moon cake, low-sugar moon cake, raw coconut latte moon cake, probiotic cheese moon cake, flowing sea salt caramel milk yellow moon cake and so on.
Recently, the explosion of the domestic game "Black Myth: Wukong" has also provided new ideas for moon cake manufacturers, and the IP joint name of "Black Myth: Wukong" has emerged.
This joint mooncake gift box was jointly created by Daoxiang Village, the protection unit of Suzhou provincial intangible cultural heritage project, and Wukong. Inspired by The Journey to the West’s creation, we will make the difficult monsters in the game, such as Tiger Pioneer, Black Bear Spirit, Wave in the Wave and Yellow Eyebrows, into moon cakes for the people of destiny to enjoy and decompress!
While retaining the classic taste, these trendy moon cakes glow with new vitality through continuous innovation. In form and taste, it is closer to the needs of consumers, and at the same time it has not lost the essence of traditional culture. Every time the moon cake is innovated, we can still feel the familiar hometown feelings and cultural heritage while enjoying the delicious food.
However, although mooncakes are delicious, some people still need to eat them carefully. Mooncakes have a high sugar content, which is a typical "three high" food (high in calories, sugar and fat). The sugar content is as high as 45% ~ 55%. Even sugar-free mooncakes can’t avoid high in calories and fat. Therefore, for people with diabetes, hyperlipidemia, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, cholecystitis, cholelithiasis, etc., when buying moon cakes, we must first look at the ingredients list, try to choose moon cakes with low calories and simple materials, and reduce the intake of other carbohydrates and oils while eating moon cakes, thus reducing the impact on blood sugar and blood lipids.