Reinventing a classical Chinese pastry proves popular

OF ALL the dread-provoking Christmas gifts—all the reindeer sweaters and buzzing children’s toys—perhaps none is as feared as the fruitcake: a football-sized dessert, wrapped in lurid red foil. It will often lurk reprovingly on sideboards and in refrigerators for months before being finally, furtively, chucked out.

For the Chinese and Vietnamese, the equivalent is the mooncake: a dense, round pastry that—based on your correspondent’s highly informal survey—people seem much fonder of giving than eating. The cakes are stuffed with a variety of high-calorie fillings, often based on lotus seeds, nuts or sweet bean-paste. As with much of Chinese cuisine, mooncakes vary by region: in Shanghai and eastern China the filling often includes pork and tends to be savoury; Henan mooncakes are crisp and almost biscuit; Teochew mooncakes are often yam.