Mooncake Mockup

One of the best mooncakes...ever

 

Ice cream. I could eat it all day--breakfast, lunch, dinner, and in-between meals. I wish I could live in a house made of ice cream... but I would eat myself out of house and home.

Imagine how mouth-wateringly pleased I was to discover this variation on the seasonal specialty called mooncake. Instead of the traditional glazed pastry, often stuffed with lotus seed paste and egg yolk, this one was made of flan, green tea and green rice ice creams, and a "yolk" made of mango sorbet.

The flan was set in a mold that gave it the characteristic relief and detail of a real mooncake, and the top received a sprinkling of praline nuts. One slice of whole shebang revealed the mango-ey yolk and the layers of green and creamy white ice cream.

Not to let this ice cream mooncake stand alone on its own merit, the ice cream artists made a spectacular serving presentation. They placed this mooncake mockup on a banana leaf atop a wooden tray. They built a lotus flower out of white chocolate, spread sliced strawberries around the edges of the banana leaf, and drizzled syrup and candied ginger around the lot. For the additional touch of class, the whole thing was served with a pot of fragrant jasmine iced tea, complete with a thimble-sized cup.

For most of my life, my favorite ice cream pretender was the whattamelon roll. It's a slice of watermelon and lime sherbet, with chocolate chips throughout, made to look like a slice of summertime heaven. But not anymore. This ice cream variant of the mid-autumn festival specialty totally takes the cake.

Tết Trung Thu - Mid-Autumn Festival

Today's full moon marks the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month. This moon marks a major holiday in many Asian cultures. In Vietnam, the holiday is called Tết Trung Thu.

I used to think that Tết meant the lunar new year. Actually, the new year is called Tết Nguyên Đán. I found out that there are four traditional holidays in Vietnam called Tết. The others are the lantern festival on the full moon of the first month, and the mid-year festival on the fifth day of the fifth month, called Tết Nguyên Tiêu and Tết Đoan ngọ respectively.

In Vietnam, the mid-autumn festival is a celebration of children. In the evening, parents fawn over their kids, give them presents, and feed them rich and savory sweets. They eat square mooncakes filled with seeds, dried fruits and dried meats. Together, families bring tea, wine or mooncakes to relatives, then venture outside to sing, light lanterns, watch lion dances, and admire the full harvest moon. In the moon, people say they can see a person who, according to folklore, was carried there tangled in the roots of a sacred banyan tree. Whether this person was a man or a woman is unclear to me.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Hồ Tây - West Lake

After he had slain the monster fish Ngư Tinh, the Dragon Lord of Lac ventured to Long Biên, on the western bank of Sông Hồng, the Red River. There, he confronted another demon, a nine-tailed fox a thousand years old that had been devouring maidens by taking the form of a handsome man and enticing them into his lair. The dragon lord called upon a great deluge of water, assaulted the demon fox with the water, and vanquished it. In the wake of the battle, a vast swath of land along the Red River's western bank had been destroyed, and in its place was a lake.

It's the last week of August, and today is the first day of the eighth lunar month. This evening, people all over Hanoi are in the streets and burning offerings of wealth like hell money and paper representations of luxuries like gold, cars, new clothes, and even smartphones. The eighth month welcomes the season of the harvest. In fifteen days, the full moon with be large and luminous, and all over Asia people will admire its beauty, feast on mooncakes, light lanterns, and contemplate the change of season.

Throughout tonight, however, the moon will stay hidden below the horizon. And today the sun was still summer strong, and beat down on Mike and I as we took a walk around Hanoi's west lake. The walk was meditative. We felt the change of day like the turn of season. The journey took several hours. The sun meandered from its zenith and disappeared in the smoggy evening haze by the time we finally finished the entire circuit.

A lotus pond shack and little boats taken when collecting flowers and seed cups.

The journey was a laundry list of sights that ranged from offensive to inspirational. We walked with the lake on our right. The faint hot breeze carried the sick mucky stench of rot. In the lake, we saw a floating restaurant called the Potomac, sprawling acres of lotus ponds, bloated and bobbing corpses of countless fish, acrobatic dragonflies and bats, rowboats, an aquatic golf driving range, bubbles of gas that rose from the lake bottom, and ripples from schools of small fish.

Around the lake, trees lined the shore. In their shade, men fished with line wrapped around half-cans of baby formula and hauled catches of carp, crappies, and catfish. Old aunties and young children chattered and swung in green net hammocks, and ravaged-looking roosters crowed and shook their featherless heads. On our left, we passed foreign embassies, dilapidated French-colonial estates, empty upscale cafes, graffiti-covered walls, and several austere temples. Off in the distance, an enormous ferris wheel and about a dozen construction cranes loomed on the smoggy horizon.

Looking at it from far away, the lake was quite attractive. It was enormous and the still surface reflected the blue sky. But close up, the lake was a disturbing sight. The opaque green water seemed nearly putrid. Trash and litter floated everywhere. Pipe outlets dumped runoff and sludge into the water. My first glance at the lake revealed about two dozen dead fish rotting at the surface, all within a few yards of the shore.

However, the locals don't share my sensibilities regarding water quality. We saw many people fishing, by hook or by net, and keeping their catches. On the northwestern side, we saw someone swimming in the mucky green water. And toward the end of our journey, we watched a man wash his clothes in it. The people who use the lake don't seem to be fretful regarding its health.

As we walked, I realized I had seen other details that complicated my opinion of the lake's quality. During the day, I saw dozens of brilliantly colored dragonflies that darted across the surface and fought with each other midflight; to the victors went perches on semi-submerged sticks and the advantage of good breeding territory. In the evening, the dusky sky was full of bats that flitted overhead and stripped the air of gnats by the swarm. Animals like dragonflies and bats give a sense of an ecosystem's health. It seems the bats and dragonflies are in great abundance at Hanoi's west lake. I think I've seen fewer of them in what would be considered more "natural" areas.

Boatmen scoop golf balls from the net spanning the aquatic driving range.
Photo by Mike Cadette

I've started to rethink the way I look at environmental spaces within urban landscapes. My initial impression, that the lake is filthy and ecologically at risk, might not be right. Maybe the reason for so many dead fish is not pollution. So many dead fish could result from overpopulation due to an overabundance of food, perhaps extensive algae growth caused by nutrient-rich affluence from sewage. An abundance of fish would fit with the abundance of dragonflies and bats, which seem to be thriving here on the west lake. The success of these airborne species is bewildering, and a little bit heartening.

As Mike and I finished our lap, the sun vanished in the smoggy haze on the horizon. The air cooled, and the rotten stench, which had risen from the sun-warmed water during the day, had faded. As darkness fell, more and more people filled the shore, to spend their evening outdoors with friends, while in their homes, their televisions sat blank and idle. Vendors peddled icecream and balloons. Incense and the sound of bells emanated from glowing temples dispersed around the lake. And bats, more than one could count, cartwheeled and somersaulted through the air over Hồ Tây.