Assorted Ravings of the Slightly-Weird

Virgin Moon & Buffalo Horns

Starting off my entry on the Mid-Autumn Festival. Ain't it auspicious? :) As folklore would have it, the Chinese celebrate this festival to commemorate Chang Er's tragic love story (if you're a die hard romantic) or in memory of the 14th century chinese patriots who plotted, rebelled and overthrew their Mongol rulers this fateful day.

To celebrate the festival, we're having a gathering at my grandma's who'll deck out the garden with lanterns and prepare a naughty after dinner feast of baby yams, pomelo, special brewed chinese tea, and of course all varieties of mooncakes. It'll be lovely out in the garden under the blessings of the bright and full moon and the magic of fairy lights. Grandma had a sentimental craving for lin jiao that she used to eat as a little girl so I went to market this morning to look for it. Also because I hadn't eaten it before and was curious to try it. :)

As you see in the photo, lin jiao are shaped like miniature water buffalo horns. They only appear in the markets around Mid-Autumn Festival during the 8th lunar month. I have yet to determine if it's classified as a fruit, root or nut. I believe they grow underwater like lotus roots. Help me out here! To eat it, the cooked horns are given a hard whack to reveal the sweet goodnesss inside. Being the scientific kitchen explorer that I am, I promptly did that, to a raw, albeit washed lin jiao. How else will I know the difference in taste between a raw and cooked lin jiao? The raw nut tasted like a cross between a sweet potato and a chestnut gao luck. It's sweet with a definite crunch to it. The taste grew on me (yes, even raw) and I can see myself popping these as a (healthy?) snack. To cook lin jiao, place them in a pot of salted water and bring to a rolling boil for half an hour or thereabouts, and then they're ready to be eaten. The cooked nut taste more powdery than the raw and it has a 'cow-y' smell. Not sure if I did them right. I hope they pass grandma's strict taste test!