(TT) - Production and sale of the traditional glutinous rice cake, banh chung, is in full swing for the Tet or the lunar New Year during which festival the food is the main offering on the ancestral altar in every home.The traditional cake varies in shape from region to region but ingredients remain the same -- sticky rice, beans, pork fat, and spices. The fat and lean pork are preferred as their fatty flavor foes well with the glutinous rice and beans.
In the north people make the cake in a square shape and call it banh chung, while in the south it is cylindrical and called banh tet.
Many craft villages specializing in making the cake have well established brands such as Tranh Khuc, Uoc Le, and Dam.
The cake is made by stuffing meat and salted beans in the center and covering it in sticky rice. It is usually wrapped in a banana leaf and bound by bamboo strips that are soaked in saltwater or steamed to make them flexible.
An experienced banh chung maker in Hanoi’s Tranh Khuc village says the cake is wrapped in six to ten layers of leaves depending on the weather.
It is well preserved this way and a well-wrapped banh chung keeps for months after Tet.
The cake varies in size but normally weighs half a kilogram. It is then boiled for eight to ten hours.
Traditionally, the women in a family work together to wrap the banh chung the day before the New Year before cooking it the whole night when people usually stay up to welcome the new year.
When served on the dining table, a banh chung is often divided into eight parts while the cylindrical banh tet is cut into slices. By the time the cake is unwrapped, the rice would have turned to an appetizing green color after absorbing the color of the banana leaf.
In Vietnamese legend, the creation of banh chung is credited to Prince Lang Lieu, a son of the sixth Hung King, one of the mythical founders of the nation.
It is said that the King decided to hold a competition among his sons to choose his next ruler. They were asked to bring in a delicacy representing piety towards ancestors on the occasion of Tet.
While the others managed to find rare and delicious foods from the forest and sea, the 18th and poorest child, Lang Liêu, who could not afford those luxurious dishes, had to be content with everyday ingredients like rice and pork.
He created banh chung to represent the earth and the round banh day to represent the sky from these simple ingredients.
Finding it was delicious and of great significance in paying respect to ancestors, the king decided to cede the throne to Lang Lieu and banh chung and banh day became traditional foods since then for Tet.
That is why banh chung is an indispensible offering to not only ancestors during Tet but also during the death anniversary of the Hung Kings on the 10th of the third lunar month.
Tet falls on February 14 this year.
