moon cakes, I'd rather be on the moon than eating this cake!

So it is starting into mid-autum festival here in Vietnam. Aparently students bring gifts for their teachers at this time. One of my students brought me some moon cakes. I was very touched by the gesture, I mean seriously I am the music teacher. Music teachers don't get gifts, do they?

Anyway, the gift was a box of moon cakes. They are traditional cakes that are eaten during this time and I had heard that we were going to have them at the school as part of our school celebration. We are having a paper lantern parade, and a dragon is coming, then we are having tea and moon cakes. I thought that sounded exciting. Moon cakes, don't they sound wonderful and who doesn't like cake? I thought that cake was cake, but clearly I was wrong.

Krista got some moon cakes too and she tried one at school - I, on the otherhand, did not, which I am glad I did not...Krista said it was terrible, I believed her but of course decided I would try it, just for the experience.

Now, these cakes come in packs of 4. They are all different flavours. They are about the size of one piece of cake, or a huge muffin and they are ornately shaped (like they are baked in a tin that is decorated), they look really nice, no frosting - just looks like a pretty little vanilla cake BUT when you break into them they are jam-packed with stuff and I use the term stuff because one of them had nuts and dried fruit and jelly and ham. Yes, I said ham. A vanilla cake with ham in it. What the hell? It was like a fruit cake for carnivores. Needless to say that was not my favorite one.

Anyway, I decided that since I took a bite out of one and it tasted like ass I should probably try all of them (at least a bite) just in case they got better (not so much). The one with dried fruit and ham was the worst I think...but then I had a bad experience with the second one I tried too. It looked more plain in the middle almost like it was just cake but there was something in the middle. I thought the something was an apricot. So I pulled a piece of it out and popped it in my mouth. It was not an apricot...It was an egg yolk. AN EGG YOLK! I popped an egg yolk into my mouth thinking it was an apricot. EWwww! Why, why is there a dried egg yolk in the center of the cake? I don't really like egg yolks when they are in eggs, I absolutely don't like egg yolks when I think they are apricots in a cake!!

The third one was more like the first, dried fruit, jelly, nuts, meat, an egg yolk...all things you would expect in an ornate baked good... (I know! I know! Lets bake random shit in pretty little cakes and watch what happens when people eat them...). The final cake was fluorescent green on the inside with an egg yolk in the middle. I tried it anyway. It was the least heinous of all the cakes. It actually had a hint of almond and I avoided the egg yolk completly. I won't say it was good, but it was clearly better then the barf in a bun version. I took note that the package read D-1 so when I am faced in public with eating a moon cake I will choose that one.

After all was said and done, I had four bites of yuck and a mouthful of experience. I now know what to expect when we have them for the celebration at the school...I can't really say that I am as excited about that now as I was when I was ignorant but at least I am prepared!