A small dense cake with a thin golden crust, filled with a sweet and silky lotus seed paste enclosing a salted egg yolk, round like the full moon. Sweet, deep, with a salty touch at the heart.

Why this dish? Far from China — Chicago, Princeton, Stony Brook — it is at Mid-Autumn that nostalgia for home is keenest. The mooncake, offered and shared with family under the full moon, is the ritual gesture of the exile thinking of those left far away.

Far from China, at Princeton and then Stony Brook, it was at Mid-Autumn that I missed my country most. When the moon became full and round, we shared these dense cakes, filled with lotus seed paste and, at their center, a salted egg yolk round like the star itself. We offered them, cut them into quarters, and each received their share — a gesture of family across the oceans. Never, biting into that golden heart, did I stop thinking of my parents who remained far away.

How it was made : Mooncakes have sealed the Mid-Autumn Festival for centuries: they were offered to loved ones and placed as offerings to the moon. The salted egg yolk, fermented in brine, represents the full orb; each family had its carved wooden molds. In the 20th-century Chinese diaspora, they became the sweet link to the homeland.

The contemporary twist : Presented with a small sky chart: the cake cut in half reveals its golden 'moon heart', arranged on a dark slate like a planet against space.

Chen-Ning Yang · Charactorium