CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — Friday, September 28th marks the Mid-Autumn Festival this year, a festival in China and other southeast Asian countries meant to celebrate the harvest and the moon. One of the ways Liu Fang’s family did this during her upbringing in China was through coming together for a feast and eating mooncakes, traditional round pastries that can be either savory or sweet.
At her restaurant, Abundance Culinary in Cleveland Heights, she’s aiming to share these mooncakes with the community, by baking them from scratch at her location on Lee Road
“Mid-Autumn Festival has always been a very important holiday in Chinese history,” she said, explaining the day is meant to celebrate the harvest.
She also said there are some symbols, like the bunny, which can be imprinted on the mooncakes and symbolizes luck, or the circle, representing the circle of life, the moon, and togetherness, that are important.
“The circle is very important on this day, because it means everybody’s back together as family, as friends, and we watch the moon and celebrate by eating a feast,” she said. “Whatever’s the seasonal harvest, that’s going to be the celebration.”
“It’s a time to sit down and think about what we have done during the year and be thankful for the harvest that we’ve got in our life and cherish that moment with family,” she said.
Liu Fang said the mooncakes in particular, something shared by family during this festival, remind her of home. However, she’s replacing some traditional ingredients with ones that may be more familiar to a wider Ohio audience.
According to Liu Fang, different regions throughout China can have their own interpretations and recipes for traditional dishes like mooncakes. For example, she said some sweet mooncakes may include ingredients like lotus or winter melon, or egg yolk or bean. However, she has chosen to put her own spin on them, creating a version using chocolate and orange.
“You can do honey, you can also do a simple syrup for this recipe, this is the Cantonese style,” she said of the sweeter dough she created from scratch, delicately forming the chocolate mixture into balls and draping the dough around it.
From there, she placed the mooncakes into a tray, stamping the top with a bunny before placing them in the oven.
For the savory version, she mixed shortening into dough, rolling it out and allowing it to rest to create a flakier, more buttery layered dough. Liu Fang said pork is a common filling for savory mooncakes, and her family grew up eating lamb versions spiced with ingredients like ginger. However, in her version, she’s using different cured meats.
“Traditionally you can also make a stamp on it, you can use different coloring, you can write on it,” she said of decorating the savory mooncakes, encouraging the activity for families and children as well.
For Liu Fang, the festival marks a time to count one’s blessings, and spend quality time with the ones you love.
“Slow down and actually enjoy a meal together, enjoy a conversation together, and nothing else really matters that much,” she said.
For the festival, Abundance Culinary will be serving a special dish, which Liu Fang describes as a cross between a crispy pork belly and a porchetta.