The origin of the star lotus world

Chapter 2038 Text

Chapter 1974

The author continues to narrate some events from his early life. Some of these events have been mentioned before, and some of them can be supplemented with details. As he continues to talk, he can derive a lot of information.

I remember that at that time, there were four mooncakes in a paper box. The packaging of the paper box was not very exquisite, not very high-end, but the quality of the mooncakes inside was very good. After dinner in the evening, I ate mooncakes in the living room of the high-rise apartment, with the floor-to-ceiling windows of the balcony open, and the sea breeze and waves outside. I don’t remember whether I looked at the moon at that time. I don’t know whether the moon on the 15th of the eighth lunar month in the small country abroad on the other side of the ocean is round or not. Even if there is a time difference, it doesn’t matter. The moon on the 15th is full on the 16th. This is a folk saying. It is estimated that the moon on those days should be very round. My mother used two mooncakes, and I also used two mooncakes. I asked my mother to give my father a mooncake, which was also considered a festival, but my mother asked how did you know to eat two? You have to use two. I didn’t see any holiday food for sale there. I guess there are some for sale, but not many. They are mainly given by overseas Chinese. They have their own circles. Some Chinese restaurants may make mooncakes during the festival, and some shops selling domestic products may have them. It is estimated that the sales will be quite good. Some people have shopping needs. If the product quantity is limited, the price may be higher. Some foreigners who taste mooncakes find this kind of pastry special. They understand the festival customs and background and think that during the Mid-Autumn Festival, families gather together and get along with each other in a warm and harmonious way, just like the New Year's Day. Everyone celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival and eats mooncakes that symbolize reunion and perfection. This saying, which has been passed down for thousands of years, seems quite warm and romantic. The author has also used mooncakes with lotus seed paste and egg yolk before, but the taste of the mooncakes is not as pure as that time. Some large mooncakes are really good and are very enjoyable to eat. It is said that some customers will specially buy large mooncakes to place during the Mid-Autumn family banquet.

Watching the plots and scenes of the Mid-Autumn Festival in ancient movies and TV shows, some big families would pile up large, medium and small mooncakes layer by layer during the festival to appreciate the moon. Some big mooncakes were as big as washbasins, and there were also many meals and fruits placed on the dining table and around them as food and decorations. Seeing the barrage, some people want to eat those big mooncakes, thinking that the taste should be quite strong and pure. During the festival, big families prepare a lot of food, which looks grand, but the amount of food used by the master class is limited, and only a part of it will be used. There will be a lot of food left, which will be rewarded to relatives and servants after the festival. Most of the food can be consumed.

It is said that in some places, there is still an old custom that before the Mid-Autumn Festival, extra-large mooncakes will be made, which can be used as festive food for hundreds of people. Some have become a famous propaganda in the local area, treating the extra-large mooncakes made for the Mid-Autumn Festival as a special thing. Not only must they have them, but they must also be made well. Some mooncakes will be deliberately kept for a period of time and eaten as much as possible instead of wasting them. Due to the limited resources in some periods of ancient times, people knew how to cherish the hard-earned food. During the festival, it is a manifestation of the good situation in the harvest year to decorate fully and eat and drink enough. Some modern people do not look forward to eating mooncakes, thinking that there are too many snacks and they can't use them all. Not only are the special products from all over the country rich and diverse, but even various snacks from abroad can be purchased online. Mooncakes do not seem to have many advantages among thousands of pastries. The modern world has abundant material conditions, and there are world delicacies to share, and there are abundant choices, but in ancient times, many ordinary people looked forward to the Mid-Autumn Festival. At that time, mooncakes were already very good snacks, no less than the pastries used for the New Year. The prototype of the mooncake was passed down to the common people from palace banquets and aristocratic mansions. Even for powerful and wealthy aristocratic families, mooncakes are an indispensable festival food during the Mid-Autumn Festival, which cannot be shaken or replaced.

I remember many years ago, when I was in my hometown, I saw a pastry shop in a shopping mall in my hometown. When it was not a festival, the mooncakes in that shop were ten yuan a piece. Some of them looked like old-fashioned mooncakes, weighing about three taels. At that price, they might be more expensive than other snacks of the same weight in the shop. It is said that the brand has a long history, older than the people born in the 1980s and 1990s. Some young people don’t understand the age of the brand, but the older generation and middle-aged people may know it. They shopped in that shop many years ago and have an impression of the old brand. It’s just that some of the snacks in that shop are particularly oily, and they should use lard and animal oil, so the taste is heavier. At that time, the shop had a special offer for making cream cakes, so I bought a few four-inch or six-inch cream cakes. The taste was okay, and I could see that they were of some quality. In the shop, there are not only Chinese snacks, but also some Western cakes to choose from. The merchants have added categories of goods to increase their appeal. During this period, the author often went to the market in the morning to eat breakfast and buy things. He saw that many stores in the market also sold moon cakes, which were about two yuan a piece. They were very ordinary, but the price was cheap, comparable to the price of vegetarian buns or sweet pastries. In the pastry room of the big supermarket, moon cakes were also made, and the price was three or four yuan a piece, which was comparable to the price of bulk moon cakes produced by the factory. The homemade moon cakes of the big supermarket are sold individually in the physical store, and sold in boxes in the shopping software, with four moon cakes in a plastic box. There are also small moon cakes weighing catties in large and small supermarkets, which are ten yuan a catty. There are grain flavors, beef flavors, fruit flavors, etc., which are a bit similar to Linglong moon cakes, but the quality and pattern are far from that good. However, if you buy a bunch of small moon cakes, there are dozens of flavors to choose from, and there will always be some that you think tastes okay. As a pastry snack, it would be a good choice.

Some time ago, the author saw the graphic promotion of the public account of the four-star hotel. There was a nice blue gift box packaging, which used a different color scheme, not the traditional warm red color. With the pattern of the gift box, it looked a bit elegant. Looking at the graphic introduction, what flavors of mooncakes are there, including egg yolk red bean paste, cheese-flavored white bean paste, charcoal-roasted coffee, red dates walnuts, and lemon passion fruit. There are fruit flavors of pineapple, blueberry, strawberry, grapefruit, and mango. There are also mooncakes with lava custard, cream green bean paste, candied crisp, brown sugar soft core, tangerine peel, matcha, and seaweed. There are many types of mooncake fillings, even coffee flavor is included in the mooncake filling, which is really worth studying. Some mooncakes weigh more than 100 grams, while others only weigh a few dozen grams. I wanted to buy some goods, and I thought some boxes had good packaging, but in the end I didn't want to spend more money, so I chose to buy affordable goods. I saw that the gift boxes ranged from more than 100 yuan to several hundred yuan, and the most expensive one was about 500 yuan, with only mooncakes and egg rolls in the box, nothing else. In the hotel's own restaurant, a family banquet during the Mid-Autumn Festival costs one or two thousand yuan, which is considered normal consumption, and is comparable to the price of the New Year's reunion banquet. Maybe some stores use the New Year's banquet standards for the festival, but there may be hairy crabs in the dishes. The crabs are fat during the Mid-Autumn Festival, with yellow and fragrant roe. The quality is good, and the price is also expensive. Some varieties of crabs are sold for dozens or hundreds of yuan each, and the heavier they are, the more expensive they are. The price can be increased a lot for each weight standard. Female crabs have crab roe, and the price is relatively higher. In a roast duck restaurant in the suburbs, a loose mooncake costs 12 yuan, and a gift box of four costs 50 or 60 yuan, plus the cost of the paper box. A crab in that restaurant costs 48 yuan each, and the price of king crab is still 300 or 400 yuan per catty, which is high. The loose lotus seed paste and egg yolk mooncakes in the brand pastry shop are still around 10 yuan. I originally wanted to go to the pastry shop to buy some snacks, but I bought the mooncakes in gift boxes through the shopping software of the big supermarket. There are mooncakes with lotus seed paste and egg yolk, five kernels, and red bean paste, each with two pieces, which only cost 35 yuan. I bought them during the clearance sale, which is a special product with a discount of less than 30%. However, the quality of the mooncakes is average, not excellent, and the taste is not very good, but it is better than the mooncakes in the gift box last year, and it is relatively cheaper. Each mooncake is 100 grams, which is 2 taels, and the size is OK. The mooncakes in the gift box I bought last year are still on sale this year in the shopping software of the big supermarket. Looking at the pictures in the shopping software, the gift box pattern is the same as before and there is no apparent change. Some brands of goods are not necessarily good.

At one of the entrances and exits of the market, I saw that some merchants had reserved stalls and many people were selling goods. At the beginning, there were many mooncake gift boxes on the countertops of the stalls, piled up in piles, with a total of hundreds. Some mooncake gift boxes were sold at high original prices. When the festival was approaching and the festival was over, there would be special promotions. For example, the original price was one hundred yuan per box. If there was a special price, you could buy two or three boxes, because it was cheaper. I had bought them before. The quality of some mooncakes in gift boxes was not bad. They were more expensive for a reason. In most places, mooncakes were just regarded as festival food, and the amount produced on a normal day was not that large. When autumn came every year, if a large number of mooncakes appeared in the market, it meant that the Mid-Autumn Festival was coming. After the Mid-Autumn Festival, the goods would be sold and disposed of. Usually, there were not many mooncakes for sale, unlike glutinous rice balls and zongzi, which were available all year round. They were not only festival food, but also common staple food, and were sold in many places. Large and small supermarkets have bags of frozen glutinous rice balls all year round. There are several stores in suburban markets that sell rice dumplings, which are often sold together with steamed cakes, buns, steamed buns, and flower rolls. There is certainly a market and need for them.

  As long as consumers think it is good, such products will have a certain market. If the price of the product is appropriate and the quality is good, and it can satisfy many consumers, such products may exist for a long time, even if they are updated for many generations, but the essence is still there.