Every year on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, the Mid-Autumn Festival is a long-standing cultural feature of the Vietnamese people. This is the occasion for families to prepare a full meal to offer to their ancestors and gods with the hope of health, peace, and prosperity.
The offering tray on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month is also an occasion for family members to gather together. Mid-Autumn Festival is a holiday for family reunion, a symbol of togetherness and love.
According to the book Traditional Vietnamese Worship Rituals by author Nguyen Quoc Thai, worshiping on the full moon day of the Mid-Autumn Festival is a very old custom of the Vietnamese people. Every family often worships heaven and earth to pray for a year of bountiful crops and smooth sailing.
According to Nguyen Quoc Thai's research, the Mid-Autumn Festival offering tray should be placed outdoors, where it can receive the prosperous spiritual energy of the earth and sky.
Normally, the Mid-Autumn Festival offering tray does not need to be as elaborate as the July or January full moon offering tray, but it still needs to be fully prepared and neat to show respect to the ancestors. Depending on the needs, each family can choose to offer vegetarian or non-vegetarian food.
Unlike other full moon offerings of the year, the Mid-Autumn Festival or Children's Day, in addition to making offerings to ancestors and gods for protection, children wait all year to enjoy the Mid-Autumn Festival feast. In addition to preparing vegetarian or non-vegetarian food for the ceremony, adults also buy many toys such as star lanterns, masks... to give to children.
For the savory offering tray, the family can prepare as follows: chicken, sticky rice, traditional dishes or according to family taste... In addition, the offering tray on the full moon day needs to have fruits with symbolic meanings such as grapefruit to wish for good things, custard apple to mean fertility or pomegranate to symbolize luck...
The fruits in traditional trays often combine green and ripe fruits, symbolizing the harmony of yin and yang.
In addition, the Mid-Autumn Festival offering tray cannot lack moon cakes and sticky rice cakes. Square moon cakes and round sticky rice cakes represent the philosophy of round sky and square earth as passed down by folklore. More sophisticated families also prepare lotus tea and fragrant jasmine tea to enjoy with moon cakes.
In the North, the Mid-Autumn Festival tray is often prepared solemnly and fully. Northerners pay attention to the presentation with full traditional dishes such as moon cakes, baked cakes, fruits. In particular, there cannot be a lack of gifts of the Northern autumn such as: green rice, ripe persimmons, custard apples...
On the contrary, in the Central region, the Mid-Autumn Festival tray is simple and rustic. The simple people of the Central region often prepare local ingredients, creating unique dishes such as banh in (rice cake) and mung bean cake. The Mid-Autumn Festival tray here often features typical fruits of the region such as dragon fruit, custard apple, Phuc Trach grapefruit, etc.
Southern people often say "Cau sung co gia re" with 5 types of fruit on the tray of five fruits such as custard apple, fig, coconut, papaya, mango. In particular, the tray of five fruits must include 3 pineapples as the base, symbolizing stability and the wish for a happy family, many children and grandchildren. A small note when making a tray of offerings to worship the moon in the South is that you should avoid placing fruits such as bananas, pears, apples, oranges, tangerines...
