The Brightest Night of the Moon

10/2/2012
Zephyrin Tsoi
100231347

There is one day of the year where every family comes together to celebrate the moon at its fullest and brightest night. Some people see it as a reason to give and share, to others it may seem like a remembrance of how china revolutionized during their different dynasties. But to me, it’s a day to remember why families are united, why it is so important to create these days to just remind yourself how important it is to be together.

Credit: Zephyrin Tsoi

Mid-Autumn Festival, or as most Asians would call it the Lunar Festival, is celebrated every year on the 15^th day of the 8^th month according to the lunar calendar. This may be just another day of the year, but to some people, this day is more then just another festival. But of course, everyone sees this festival differently according to his or her religion, vision, and mostly, family traditions.

Even though everyone sees this festival differently, there is one thing that will always be the same, moon cakes.

As mid-autumn festival arrives, the sight of moon cakes become more and more visible everywhere you go. Moon cakes is a traditional chinese pastry made out of lotus paste with a salty egg yolk right in centre with a golden brown crust that is shaped in symbols of the festival. The taste of moon cakes was so sweet that people could barely finish one on their own. Families usually come together to open one moon cake, split in 4 or 8 pieces, and matching it with a strong herbal tea. If good weather, some families would even have a barbeque or hotpot outside under the moon to celebrate this festival as if they were celebrating with everyone else under the same bright moon.

Credit: Amy Yeong

As years went by, chefs became so creative and even made different types of moon cakes for the festival. Some became green tea flavored, red bean paste, peanuts, beef bits and even the taste of xo sauce.  Some even lost the lotus paste and filled it in with a creamy paste that required moonc akes to be kept in the fridge.

Sweetness has already pampered people’s mind that sweet is happy. Despite the many calories that each moon cake carries, just having the opportunity to be there with family, watching every single smiling face, enjoying that tiny piece of moon cake is already brightening the night before it ends. Being together really helps relationships grow stronger and help understand one another. Despite all the differences that people might have, festivals are ways to bring people together to just brush the little things off and appreciate the things that you have at that very moment. 

It would only be right to indulge a bit and enjoy the sweet taste of moon cake during this mid-autumn festival under the brightest night of the year.

Related Links:

Mid-Autumn Festival

Traditional Moon Cake Recipe

Psychological Impressions on Food

9/24/2012
Nerissa Magol
100215010

Hungry? Thinking about food?

Credit: Nerissa Magol

Out of 24hrs in a day, how many times a day do you think of food? It is a hunger/ urge about thinking what your next meal is going to be or is it a negative psychological thought that others think is an undesirable trait in you? For me, when I think about the word food, a delicious chocolate cupcake appears in front of my eyes. What about you, it could be a roast chicken with mashed potatoes and veggies, or a platter of sushi that draws an image in your mind.



Credit: Maggie 

       What does food mean to you? Isn’t food just food? Or is food a fuel for our bodies? When did food become more than just nutrition’s? Doesn't healthy eating mean eating the essential food groups in an enjoyable way to keep a normal, maintained weight? People with healthy eating habits use food for energy, and sometimes as a source of pleasure. They may be motivated by health and beauty, or their desires for weight loss or keeping it maintained, and live a life that replicates Hippocrates' advice "Let food be thy medicine, and medicine shall be thy food." Spoken By an ancient Greek physician.

 

Credit: Nerissa Magol, at Chillis Restaurant.

Psychologically healthy eating means, "eating without meaning."  It is important to remember that what we eat affects how we feel, and how we feel and think affects how and what we eat. Unfortunately in today's world, what and how we eat is influenced by various dynamics, such as the culture we are brought up in, the environment around us, social stresses in our daily lives, and family issues. This causes us to irrationally see food as a coping tool, while the truth is that using food to deal with stress, hopelessness, boredom, anger, or anxiety will only make us feel worse in our future. Many of us have forgotten the meaning of nutritional food intake. Fast food chains are competing with their psychological pricing to “up-size” their “value meals”. Common slogans such as “just $1 for any size”, are seen everywhere around us today.  It’s a way of fooling us into believing that bigger is better, and not only better, but normal since majority of the people are following this daily so why don’t you. Think you can resist the "Buy one, Get a Two Free" offer? You can't, and in fact, you'll probably buy more than you would normally buy. This is all a prank or a myth as some say towards psychologically arrangements in supermarket’s or restaurants that try to confuse our minds.

Everyone day has different views about what is good and what is not good. Chocolates are supposed to be bad; but recent studies have shown, having chocolate in moderate amounts could be beneficial. For example, dark chocolate lowers blood pressure, says Dr. Dirk Taubert, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Cologne, Germany. Having a balanced diet by including all the food groups satisfies our body needs as well as our psychological wants. I personally believe, one should eat for the taste and not just because they have to. Enjoying the first three bites of your cupcake or your roast chicken with mashed potatoes, brings the satisfaction in our minds and on our pallets; which further decides if we want to continue eating for its tastes or for the sake of finishing our food.

Want to end with a small story that I would like to share with my readers, that I heard couple of months ago regarding a seventy-five year old man, who loves having sweet dumplings daily. He eats at least one kilogram of sweet dumplings and does not gain weight. I was wondering how is it possible to not gain weight with a food that contains tons and tons of sugar and cooked in litres and litres of oil. Later, I was told to guess what could be a possible reason for this gentleman not to gain weight by eating something greasy and fattening every day. Finally the answer was revealed that he does not swallow the sweet dumplings he eats daily. He simply, chews the dumplings, enjoys the taste of the dumplings and spits out the substance of the sweet dumplings. He experimented this ideology by himself and found himself not gaining weight. He asked his doctor, and the doctor said, " You are just swallowing the juices of the sweet dumplings, not the actual mass of the product. Therefore, liquids are easy to digest, compared to the mass substances we swallow".

                             So who's up for a weight maintaining food challenge?