Pig Mooncake

Oink! My wife and I found this cute pig-shaped mooncake at our local Asian supermarket a few weeks ago. The cake was for the Mid-Autumn Festival (also known for the Mooncake Festival, because of the tradition of eating mooncakes to celebrate it).

The pig moon cake is filled with mung bean paste and its eyes are made from black beans. As you can see, this one is a mass-produced version. Handmade, artisanal pig mooncake (yes, there is such a thing) is much more detailed (see below). This store-bought piggie even has a golden plastic stand that looks like the lower half of a pig.

We were tickled at our piggie (I wish it were a pork bun, I don't particularly like mooncakes), but like I mentioned above, there are much better looking ones.

Animal-shaped mooncakes, it seems, are popular in Vietnam (they've made bunny-shaped mooncakes, etc.) According to this video clip from Youtube user Vietnam Daily Life, the country's tradition of making pig mooncakes became popular in the late 80s in Hanoi. Watch how they're made: