Why do we eat mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival? The origin of eating mooncakes

It is the Mid-Autumn Festival again, and it is time to reunite with family. Mooncakes are also hot-selling all over the country. Whether you are going home to visit relatives or visiting friends and relatives, mooncakes, a must-have food for the Mid-Autumn Festival, are the best gifts for people. But why do we eat mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival? Many people don't know the origin of this, so today I will introduce it to you.

Why do we eat mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival?

In ancient China, people would offer sacrifices to the moon or worship the moon on August 10 every year, and mooncakes were a must-have food when people offered sacrifices to the moon god. Over the long years that followed, people gradually combined the worship of the moon god with the Mid-Autumn moon-watching and mooncake tasting, and mooncakes became a must-eat food during the Mid-Autumn Festival, and it also became a symbol of family reunion.

The Origin of Eating Mooncakes

1. The custom of eating mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty in ancient China. It is said that during the reign of Emperor Gaozu of Tang, a great general returned triumphantly on August 15 and brought back cakes presented by foreigners. The cakes had gorgeous packaging and were round in appearance. Emperor Gaozu of Tang took the round cake and said, "We should invite the toad to eat the Hu cake." From then on, the name mooncake began to spread, and eating mooncakes on August 15 became a custom that has been passed down to the present day.

2. There are written records about watching the moon and tasting mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival in the Southern Song Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty in ancient China. From this, we can see that people have started to eat mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival since the Tang Dynasty, and this custom has been passed down for thousands of years and has not changed until now. Although the method of making mooncakes has undergone many improvements, its round appearance and beautiful patterns have not changed much. These are the origins of people eating mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

3. However, there is a different theory about the origin of eating mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival. They believe that when the Ming Dynasty Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang started an uprising, he agreed to send troops on August 15 and put a note to convey the message in the mooncakes. Later, the uprising was victorious, and people would eat mooncakes on August 15 every year to commemorate it. Later, after continuous changes, the custom of eating mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival was formed.