Hainanese mooncakes may be disappearing but this family is fighting to save them
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Hainanese mooncakes may be disappearing but this family is fighting to salvage them
Unwilling to let a 92-year family recipe be forgotten, one homo quit a chore he loved to commencement a bakery with his eighty-yr-erstwhile mum.
Chong Suan and his mother, Wong Chih Lian, run Chuan Ji. (Photo: Joyee Koo)
03 Sep 2022 06:30AM (Updated: x Jul 2022 02:33AM)
Wong Chih Lian was born, quite literally, amid the furious pounding of sesame seeds during the busiest time of the year at her family unit'southward Hainanese mooncake bakery – the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Now aged lxxx, she recounts, her optics growing misty, how her mother worked at the bakery all through her pregnancy, pounding white sesame seeds into a crumbly paste up until her labour pains began and she had to get out for the hospital.
Being born during the Mid-Autumn Festival somehow seemed to ensure that Madam Wong's life would always be entwined with mooncakes. And not just any mooncakes only Hainanese mooncakes – a little-known pastry of which she and her son, Chong Suan, are the last of the guardians.
They now run Chuan Ji, a small bakery and cafe in MacPherson that stays true to the family's roots, baking up to 500 Hainanese mooncakes a twenty-four hours during the busy Mid-Autumn flavor.
Information technology was Madam Wong'due south parents who opened the famous Nam Tong Lee baker of the 1920s in Purvis Street, selling pastries all year circular but the "su yan bing" but once a yr, as a luxurious treat in celebration of the Mid-Fall Festival. That's how the flaky pastry, with its frail nibble and savoury-sweet, peppery filling, came to be known as the Hainanese mooncake.
The recipe has been passed down through generations of her family, originating in Hainan, China; but these unique confections tin no longer exist establish there, Chong said, and people from around the globe now come to buy Chuan Ji's mooncakes.
Secret 92-YEAR-Sometime RECIPE
Many of their regular customers are older Hainanese who take sorely missed this gustation of nostalgia. When Nam Tong Lee closed after Chong'south grandmother died, the Hainanese mooncakes disappeared along with it. His cousin opened a bakery of the same name in Batam, simply Chong felt that the family unit'due south recipe was not being honoured at that place. Ii years ago, he made the difficult determination to leave his cherished job every bit a mechanical design engineer and showtime Chuan Ji forth with his mother.
"I loved my task, but when I thought most the 92-year history of the mooncake, I thought information technology would be a real pity if it disappeared," Chong, 45, said. "It's my grandmother's secret recipe… If I don't exercise it, it will be lost forever. No one else is doing it. And it'southward our heritage. It's part of our identity."
He isn't the only one who feels that way. "There are customers who say, 'I've been searching high and low for these pastries for the longest fourth dimension'," he shared. "Some old customers from my grandma's day – the moment they find these, they are so delighted." Younger customers recall how their parents used to buy them the mooncakes. "They get a lilliputian emotional. That sense of satisfaction gives me the motivation to keep going, because honestly, information technology'southward very tiring."
It's certainly not an easy job, to say the to the lowest degree. Each mooncake is advisedly paw-shaped in a traditional wooden mould. Their filling contains xiii dissimilar premium ingredients such as candied orange pare, rose carbohydrate, fried shallots, melon seeds and, yes, the sesame seeds that are, thankfully, no longer ground manually, even though other tasks, like frying fresh shallots, are still done past hand.
The reason they persist is simple. "Considering I desire to brand nutrient that's different from other people's," Madam Wong said. "I want to make good nutrient, and when the food makes people happy, I feel happy, too."
The mooncakes' season is and then distinct, in fact, that information technology even has the ability to bring people together. Chong said, "There was an older lady who used to be my mother'due south neighbour on Purvis Street. I think she must be over ninety years onetime. Her son brought her our mooncakes to attempt. She found the taste very familiar and she asked, 'Is this from Nam Tong Lee?' She asked her son to come downwardly and wait for 'Chih Lian from Nam Tong Lee'. He came and showed my female parent a photo of her: 'Practice you recognise this lady?' She said, 'I do!'"
The side by side 24-hour interval, he brought his mother for a visit. "They had not seen each other in 40 or 50 years. But this mooncake brought them together again."
KEEPING THE FAITH
It's attestation to the fact that even a small-scale pastry can play an enormous role in building a sense of shared identity.
"Only we Hainanese make these mooncakes," Madam Wong said. "They are different and special. That gives me a sense of pride."
Equally for how she feels about her son'southward work, she said simply, "It's skillful to accept someone to go on the legacy."
Does she hope that the business will remain in the family for another generation? "I don't know – we'll see how it goes," she said affably. Chong'southward two children, aged 10 and five, are however very young. But he doesn't heed passing on his skills to the engineering students who work role fourth dimension in the kitchen – none of whom are Hainanese – and who he also mentors in their coursework.
In recent months, he has besides rolled out a bill of fare of beef stew, pork chop, kaya toast and more – all traditional Hainanese family recipes perfected by his mother, served alongside traditional java and tea brewed according to his own carefully-researched method.
Madam Wong's expertise in food is expressed in her enthusiasm and generosity. "My kueh kosui is less sweet than others. Our ondeh-ondeh is boiled only upon order, so information technology arrives at the table hot and chewy. And I wash my shallots carefully earlier frying them considering I desire to brand sure they're clean," she said, before insisting on sending us home with a souvenir of a packet of crispy, fragrant fried shallots.
What does she think her mother would say if she could run into the piece of work they are doing now? "She'd be very happy," Madam Wong said. "My mother was very strong. She wasn't well educated. But she did any she could to sustain herself and the states, and so she endured whatever hardships came her fashion."
Baking Hainanese mooncakes is a way of honouring her memory – and of sustaining a succulent slice of tradition.
Chuan Ji is at 401 MacPherson Route, MacPherson Mall #01-17.
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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/entertainment/dying-art-of-hainanese-mooncakes-250816
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