Sticky, delicious, ‘a bit fatty’: Vietnam’s Lunar New Year delicacy takes 12 hours to make

By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-01-27 04:26:16 | Updated at 2025-01-27 16:46:09 12 hours ago
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Exhausted after 12 hours of cooking, Nguyen Thi Thuy Hong gently unpeels the last of five leaves encasing a squishy, sticky rice cake known as banh chung – a Lunar New Year delicacy in Vietnam.

The wrapped cakes of glutinous rice, green beans and pork belly have for centuries been one of several dishes prepared in a frenzy at home specially for Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, which begins on Wednesday.

Hong, 55, has laboured over the dish – which must be boiled for 12 hours over a wood fire – almost every year for the last four decades.

 AFP

Nguyen Thi Thuy Hong wraps “banh chung” outside her house on the outskirts of Hanoi. Photo: AFP

“We can buy ready-made banh chung but it doesn’t create that Tet atmosphere,” she said, explaining she enjoyed the process of cleaning leaves, soaking rice and pre-cooking beans in the very early morning.

“It keeps me busy, and it’s tiring, but I still love making the cake myself.”

According to an oft-told legend, the banh chung recipe was first prepared thousands of years ago by a Vietnamese prince who wanted to impress his father in a bid for the throne.

 AFP

A Vietnamese woman eats “banh chung” rice cake in Hanoi. Photo: AFP

Pleased with the cake’s flavour and impressed with his son’s demonstration of respect, the king duly handed down his crown.

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