“to eat a duck” is to get rid of the oppressor

September 17, 2024 12:14 PM

10 Traditional Mid-Autumn Festival Foods. Mooncakes: to make at home, to protest oppression, to promote mental health care. 11 Recipes to Celebrate Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving).

But who makes all the food? Why do divorces go up after Chuseok? For many, Chuseok is the season of rage.
posted by spamandkimchi (15 comments total)

Post in honor of my Seoul housemate who staggered back to our apartment after hours in the kitchen (cutting and cooking and frying jeon) to prepare for the charye (ancestral rite?) table. She said she smelled like oil even after taking a shower.

To be fair, some Confucian organizations are advocating for simplified tables.

Also I don't know anything about Vietnamese Tet Trung Thu but it seems overall similar to Chinese and Korean practices?
posted by spamandkimchi at 12:21 PM on September 17 [4 favorites]

Why am I not shocked to hear that the season of rage happens after a Thanksgiving-y holiday with relatives?
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:05 PM on September 17 [6 favorites]

I was just thinking - what happens to the divorce rate here in the US post Thanksgiving and Christmas? And sure enough: "By the beginning of each new year, the divorce rate in the U.S. climbs by nearly one-third."
posted by drewbage1847 at 1:35 PM on September 17 [4 favorites]

spamandkimchi, if you are currently in Seoul please go to 도향촌 in 명동 and have a 십경월병 for me. It's their signature mooncake and I have not been able to find this type of mooncake anywhere else. It has a crumbly filling of 16 different kinds of nuts and dried fruits, and is fantastic with tea.
posted by needled at 2:03 PM on September 17 [5 favorites]

And how can one have Chuseok without songpyeon (송편)?
posted by needled at 2:09 PM on September 17

"The illness often strikes during the holiday season when family members and relatives get together. The occasion might appear joyous from the outside, but it is nerve-wracking and stressful to many who suffer emotionally in various situations."

I think this feeling transcends cultural boundaries.
posted by brookeb at 5:36 PM on September 17 [5 favorites]

I am a very americanized korean-american, so I had not heard of this holiday! I'll have to make some vegetarian kimchi jjigae or something this weekend.

Also, just to satisfy my morbid curiosity, I checked when my grandparents got divorced and what do you know, my halmeoni filed for divorce at the end of September (many, many years ago). I doubt it was actually related to this, but hey fun coincidence.
posted by extramachine at 6:19 PM on September 17 [2 favorites]

I see that we are talking Chinese and Korean festival foods, but seeing as today marks the end of Ganesh chaturthi, it would be appropriate to also mention the modak.
posted by splitpeasoup at 7:30 PM on September 17

...wait I need to find that chart that shows what's a mooncake.... (Unfortunately more chinese-oriented) I think its logic indicates Earth the planet is a mooncake.
posted by cendawanita at 9:07 PM on September 17

I've never had a mooncake! I should remedy that.
posted by Kitteh at 7:29 AM on September 18 [1 favorite]

> I've never had a mooncake! I should remedy that.

I don't think I've ever had a good one. I suspect the ones by the register at my local Asian grocer are not close to spec compared with the ones from Shanghai Mental Health Center, which look awesome.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:08 AM on September 18

Well, I'll be in Toronto this weekend so if anyone has mooncake recs, I'd love to have them.
posted by Kitteh at 8:16 AM on September 18

The Confucian organization argument for a simpler table from spamandkimchi’s first comment is strikingly simple and clear. No historical use of the most complicated dishes, here’s an example of an appropriate table that’s mostly fruit, the ancestors want their family members to be happy around each other.

Can’t remember where I got this, maybe a French person can square me up: have been told that sugar was historically expensive enough in rural France that sweet dishes were much higher status than savory and therefore there was an understanding that having too many sweet dishes was inappropriate. Always one more savory than sweet, with a rough number of dishes for how big the event was.

Consumerism trains us to think of consumption-limiting norms as all killjoy, but I don’t know another way to rein in runaway competition, Red Queen, cichlid-tail problems.
posted by clew at 9:57 AM on September 18

Alas, needled, I'm not in Seoul currently, despite the ambiguous verb tenses. Thanks for the recommendation 도향촌 is on my list now!

I did buy songpyeon from one of the local Korean markets on Sunday, but it seemed not as fresh as it should be? Admittedly my standards for ddeok are higher than usual after spending a good chunk of July in Korea.

extramachine, I too grew up pretty Americanized, though I did spend a couple of years attending Saturday Korean school, which is where I think I got my first taste of Chuseok traditions. I assume we ate ddeokguk or got songpyeon from Koreatown, but as my paternal grandparents had both died, there was no (real) obligation imposed on my mom. I think. My dad's older brother did live very close to us, so perhaps we went there to celebrate and women got stuck in the kitchen while all the cousins watched movies in the basement? Children can be very clueless.
posted by spamandkimchi at 10:50 AM on September 18

I grew up in a Korean family that had been in Seoul for generations. The charye table I remember from my younger years was pretty much the simpler one.

After the charye rites were observed (men and women in separate adjoining rooms, a lot of bowing, sitting and waiting to give the ancestors time to partake of the charye table, more bowing) it was time for the assembled relatives to eat and that's when the holiday foods came out. There were no daughters-in-law slaving in the kitchen, as the cooking, serving, and cleanup was handled by help hired for the occasion. I realize not all families may be as privileged, but I think this was the most equitable approach given the large size of the extended family and the difficulty of distributing labor equitably among family members.
posted by needled at 11:30 AM on September 18 [1 favorite]