GEORGE TOWN, Sept 7 — The Mid-Autumn festival is just around the corner and it’s that time of the year again for lanterns and mooncakes.

Celebrated by ethnic Chinese all over the world, in Malaysia, it is mostly celebrated as a cultural festival rather than a religious one where mooncakes are the main focus.

As with any seasonal specialty cuisine, mooncakes have become so commercialised they are available more than a month before the festival, which falls on September 8 this year.

In Malaysia, there are many large-scale manufacturers mass producing mooncakes and then selling them at supermarkets, shopping complexes and hyper stores, often at inflated prices.

The humble mooncake, once believed to have been used by the Hans to pass a secret uprising message against the Mongols during the Yuan dynasty in China, has also evolved into many different shapes, types, sizes and flavours.

To keep up with the times, modern manufacturers pander to consumer demands for something “special” by producing flavours like tiramisu cheese, durian or to be more specific, Musang king durian that is all the rage this year.

It has become almost a norm to find mooncakes, baked and the snowskin variety, having unique combinations of fillings so much so that the old traditional flavours are almost all, but forgotten by the younger generation.

One of these traditional mooncakes is the one with mixed nuts and ham.

As much as it sounds weird, this is one flavour that many of the older generation favoured and is also one of the first few flavours that are sold out, especially at local biscuit shops.

In Penang, other than the variety of mass-produced mooncakes available at shopping malls, our local biscuit shops and homemakers also churn out their own mooncake versions.

Malaysia’s largest manufacturer of mooncake pastry and fillings, Leong Yin Pastry, also originated from Penang and has its own line of mooncakes.

Other local biscuit shops that normally sell Penang’s iconic tau sar pneah, also jumped on the bandwagon to produce their own line-up of mooncakes.

However, the best ones are not found in biscuit shops but at market stalls in the various wet markets all over Penang.

Over at the Cecil Street Wet Market, several stalls sell freshly made mooncakes by homemakers with an entrepreneurial streak.

One sells cute little mooncakes shaped like small pigs with fillings such as chocolate, red bean, lotus, green tea and pineapple while another sells normal round mooncakes with all the usual traditional flavours in plain plastic boxes.

Not only are these refreshingly different from the mass produced mooncakes, the prices are more affordable than those by big brands or manufacturers.

If you want to try local Penang-made mooncakes, these are great places to start with other than those found at market stalls.

Ng Kee Cake Shop

61, Lebuh Kimberly, George Town

Leong Yin Mooncakes  

De Tai Tong Restaurant Lebuh Cintra, George Town

Kedai Biskut Seng Heang

134- 138 Jalan Datuk Keramat, George Town

Ban Heang Biscuits

200 Macalister Road, George Town