Coconuts and Mooncakes

Every Thursday, there is a fresh market at the end of Soi 23 – the side street that the LMG Thailand office is on. Many people from work go there at lunchtime to buy fresh fruit, vegetables, flowers, etc. A few people in the office were talking about going because they wanted some coconut juice. They were amazed that I had never had coconut juice – coconut milk yes, but not coconut juice. So, Xianyu said she would buy me one since she was going to pick up several for herself. (Puk and I were going to the Chinese noodle shop for lunch and not the fresh market. Puk really wanted to go for Chinese noodles and I like the “ba mee haeng gai” there – “ba mee” are long, yellow noodles, “haeng” means I want it “dry” and not the soupy version, and “gai” means with chicken. I need to remember to bring my camera the next time we go. The place is classic Chinese noodle shop – no frills, plastic stools, no menu (you just write down what you want on a piece of paper) and if you don’t get there early, you’re basically sitting on the street in between parked cars.)

So, we get back from lunch and Xianyu has a coconut for me. (Those are Xianyu’s hands in the photos, by the way.) Evidently, in order to get coconut juice, you need young coconuts, not the hard, brown ones that we think of when we think of coconuts. Fortunately, the coconut comes with the top cut almost completely all the way around.

You just lever a knife underneath and pry it off entirely. Then, there is a flap of soft coconut flesh and below that is what looks like slightly milky water.

Typically, you just put a straw in and drink the juice that way. But, since I wanted to see what it looked like – and so I could take a picture – I poured it into a glass.

I have to say that my life would have been complete had I never tasted coconut juice. Not my favorite – at all. I had a few sips and to me it tasted like lukewarm water with a little bit of salt and a little bit of sugar in it. Xianyu was surprised so I asked her to taste it – maybe it was just a bad coconut? Nope, she said that’s what it was supposed to taste like. Thanks for the effort, but “pom mai chorb” – “I don’t like.”

(Funny how most of the Thai I remember revolves around food. Go figure.)

This week was also the Autumn Moon Festival – September 22 to be exact. It is an especially important holiday in China, but it is celebrated throughout Asia. Basically, it is a celebration of the Harvest Mooon. One of the traditions associated with the festival are mooncakes. Mooncakes are small, round pastries – about the size of your palm – and they are typically filled with lotus seed paste. Besides lotus seed paste, mooncakes also come filled with black sesame seeds, chestnuts, durian, and red bean paste. They can also have a hard-boiled egg yolk in the middle – meant to symbolize the orange harvest moon. Typically, mooncakes are cut into small wedges and eaten with Chinese tea.

Short history lesson:
The legend is that the mooncakes played an important part in Chinese history. The Chinese were ruled by the Mongols in the thirteenth century. But, the Mongols did not eat mooncakes so the legend is that the Chinese used mooncakes to pass along plans for a rebellion. People were told not to eat the mooncakes until the day of the Moon Festival, which is when the rebellion took place.

Tewtip brought some into work this week and I have to say that the ones filled with lotus seed paste were very tasty. I don’t like eggs, but Tewtip knows that so she made sure to give me one with the egg already cut out. (Because Thai people like to put a fried egg on top of many of their lunch dishes, I made sure to learn the phrase “mai sai kai, krap” – “don’t put egg, please” – early on in my Thai lessons. It rolls off the tongue easily and has come in very handy.) They also served up quite a few in the lobby here at CentrePoint. Here are a few photos.