Over the moon

Before the annual Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls this year on September 14, traffic in Beijing gets even more robust than usual. The reason, it is believed, is that the roads are crammed with cars rushing out of town for the long weekend - or zipping to the post office to ship ubiquitous gift boxes of "mooncakes," a traditional holiday food.

The festival originated during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), when Chinese emperors offered sacrifices to the Moon God on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar. But the tradition of eating mooncakes - round baked goods with sweet and savory stuffings - came later, during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).

Today the festival is celebrated as a time for family reunions, when relatives and friends observe the moon, drink wine or tea, and eat the delicious small cakes that resemble the moon in shape.

Even after several centuries, Chinese chefs are still innovating.

There are myriad styles of mooncakes, with local varieties named for Beijing, Suzhou and Cantonese recipes. Most traditional stuffings include such ingredients as mashed jujubes, mashed red beans, lotus paste, preserved egg yolks, nuts and fruits.

Today, however, the range of mooncake recipes is as endless as the channels on satellite TV.

Some popular modern flavors include chocolate, cranberry and beef and black pepper stuffings.

Foreign firms with branches in China are even getting in on the act. Starbucks produces mooncakes with 10 different stuffing flavors, including Columbian coffee with hazelnut, Kenyan coffee with California orange zest, and Earl Grey tea with lemon taste.

Haagen-Daz also makes mooncakes, which are really chocolate-shelled ice-cream cakes, with colorful stripes on top.

Another twist on the traditional mooncake is available at Quan Ju De, a Beijing restaurant chain famous for its Peking Roast Duck. The recipe includes duck inside the mooncake, as well as duck liver with pinenut stuffing.

Some of the city's classiest five-star hotels now prepare mooncakes with really luxurious ingredients, including shark fin, abalone, and even Wuliangye, a top Chinese liquor.