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.
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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.
“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.
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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