A Taste of Lewiston-Auburn

This afternoon I embarked on yet another culinary adventure. Local restaurants from the area presented their savoriest dishes in an array of global cuisines- representing those of Mexico to Thailand, through China to India, and Italy to the Realm of Sweets (especially of macaroons, chocolate chip cookies, ice cream, and brownies). Gray Cage was as usual, packed with both locals, staff, and students eagerly anticipating to satisfy their palate- and what a palatial pallet of pallates it was (sorry, as an English major, couldn’t resist throwing in a few literary devices) Admission was $5 for 10 tickets (each booth typically required a ticket in exchange for a taste), and I regret to announce that I had a few left over as there was not enough room to digest and time to leave for class (I wish the event could have lasted longer!).

For many, there were both old and new sights. I’m glad I not only got the opportunity to eat, but to mingle and learn a few tips for a few recipes. Better yet, I’m grateful that although I spent only $5, I know that my proceeds are to be donated to the Flood Relief in Pakistan. I sincerely hope that through the “Annual Taste of Lewiston-Auburn” (the sixth one!) the community and college can continue to collaborate, and that the tradition will be here even after I’ll be long gone.

PS- Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival & MoonCakes

As event coordinator of “Sangai Asia”, one of the cultural clubs here on the Bates campus, we decided to kick off the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival by offering mooncakes to the public. The Mid-Autumn Festival is widely celebrated throughout Asia annually- in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, and China. It marks the rising of a full moon, and commemorates moon worship and moon watching.It’s kind of like the equivalent of Groundhog Day.

Chang'E: Goddess of the Moon

The figure above in the picture is Chang’E, the mythical Moon Goddess of Immortality. According to ancient Chinese custom, the Chinese emperor offered sacrifices to the sun in spring and the moon in autumn.

A mooncake.

Traditionally, “mooncakes” are eaten during the festival. Typical mooncakes are sweet round or rectangular pastries, measuring about 10 cm in diameter and 4-5 cm thick. A thick filling usually made from lotus seed paste is surrounded by a relatively thin crust and may contain yolks from salted duck eggs.

Did you know? Mooncakes were used as a medium by the Ming revolutionaries in their espionage effort to secretly distribute letters in order to overthrow the Mongolian revolutionaries of China in the Yuan dynasty. Another method of hiding the message was printed in the surface of mooncakes as a simple puzzle or mosaic. In order to read the encrypted message, each of the four mooncakes packaged together were cut into 4 parts each. The 16 pieces of mooncake were then pieced together in such a fashion that the secret messages can be read. The best part: The pieces of mooncake were then eaten to destroy the message.

With the influx of curious Batesies brave enough to venture to try a slice of mooncake and the fragrance of dumplings galore, the food vanished within an hour.

I can safely affirm that without the presence of cultural clubs here, the immersion of cultural exploration wouldn’t be possible. And so: