Blueberry-Pineapple Mooncake

By now, you would've seen yet another cultural commercialism (is there such a term?) in full swing. By that I don't mean the foodstalls selling Buka Puasa (breaking of fast) fare but the shops and stalls peddling mooncakes. If you're not from Malaysia or Singapore - I'm assuming our neighbours down south too have similar tastebuds - mooncakes today no longer come in the traditional lotus paste "flavour". Even the mooncakes are subjected to the forces of globalization, so we now have multi-flavoured mooncakes. This can only mean more choices, although these experimentation often result in missed affairs, for the consumers. More choices mean more dough (pun intended) for the sellers. A mooncake will set you back between RM6 to RM16 on how exotic it is and depending on where you buy it. A box of 4 goes for around RM50. Read more about the Mid-Autumn Festival here and how it influenced the appearance of the mooncake here.

The not-so-humble, and definitely not-cheap mooncake

So to add to the lotus paste versions, we now have durians, pandan, single/double yolked, combos, ice-cream and many more. Don't forget the Blueberry-Pineapple version too which I had the misfortune to sample just now. I'm expecting a wider variety of flavours to come for the humble mooncake. If Bubba from Forrest Gump can think of so many ways to cook the shrimp, I'm sure the enterprising scalpers will think of greater things for the round confectionary. Can't remember what Bubba said? Here it is: "Anyway, like I was sayin', shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it."