Do you stop at somewhere in your Vietnam tour package these days and notice that it is the time of preparing a big festival of Vietnam? Yes, it is exactly the Tet holiday – a traditional festival of Vietnamese people for welcoming a lunar new year. Then, it will be more stimulating if you get to know about the traditional food for Tet celebration. Now it’s time to uncover it!
Banh Chung & Banh Tet
Banh Chung & Banh Tet is one of the traditional food for Tet celebration
Among the traditional food collections for Tet’s celebration in Vietnam is Banh Chung and Banh Tet; Banh Chung is common in the north, and Banh Tet is found in the south and the middle. Previously, in most regions through Vietnam, people would be in a rush to prepare this traditional food two days before the first day of the new year, but nowadays this custom is just found in the countryside because supermarkets in cities are full of the cakes sold a few weeks in advance.
Key ingredients of Banh Chung and Banh Tet are quite the same and consist of glutinous rice, pork, and mung beans, but they are different in shape. While Banh Chung is rectangular, Banh Tet looks like a log. Especially, according to a Vietnamese legend, the son of King Hung Vuong XVI was the person creating this kind of cake along with Banh Giay, both of which symbolize the harmony between the Earth and Sky.
Caramelized pork and eggs (thit kho tau)
Caramelized pork and eggs (thit kho tau)
Another traditional dish for Tet celebration is caramelized pork and eggs or braised pork and eggs in light sauce (thit kho tau in Vietnamese). Apart from the above ingredients (pork and eggs), what makes the food more special and fragrant is coconut juice. With every Vietnamese family, it partially makes up the Tet’s spirit as it is prepared and put on altars with other traditional dishes for ancestral worship. A meal in the Tet holiday also gets more meaningful as all family members sit around and enjoy such traditional food.
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Tet Jam (Candied fruit)
Tet Jam (Candied fruit)
Tet Jam carries a beautiful meaning in the Tet holiday. Exactly, without candied fruit, we will not perceive the taste of such a traditional festival. Although it is not enjoyed as a dish in Tet meals, this snack is too excellent while the hosts and their guests are talking together. It is better to sip cups of tea when enjoying pieces of Tet mut and a few sorts of seeds (e.g. sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and watermelon seeds). Normally, this food along with other colorful cakes will be kept in an eye-catching box and put on the in the living room, implying that all guests are always welcomed to the house.
Spring rolls and Vietnamese sausage (Nem and Gio Cha)
Spring rolls and Vietnamese sausage (Nem and Gio Cha)
Another dish which is indispensable to the Tet meal is Vietnamese sausage (Gio Cha in Vietnamese). It will be more delicious as we enjoy the food with Banh Chung and steamed glutinous rice; this is also the way Vietnamese people savor it in the Tet holiday. Just including pork with fish sauce, steamed for some hours, it indeed has an unforgettable taste. As for spring rolls, despite easily being found in many places all year round, the food is absolutely important in the afternoon of the last day of the lunar year when family members practice ancestral worship.
Stuffing bitter melon
Stuffing bitter melon
Be curious about why Vietnamese people choose stuffing bitter melon as the traditional food for Vietnamese Tet holiday? In fact, it is not merely tangy and healthy but carries a unique meaning as well as implies a wish of each Vietnamese family. Bitter melon is “kho qua” in Vietnamese, meaning the life’s difficulties will go by, so they enjoy this food at the beginning of the new year with the hope that all old and troublous things will be left behind, and instead the new will be welcomed ahead.
Pickles (pickled small onions & scallion heads)
Pickles (pickled small onions & scallion heads)
Vietnamese people will insist that you have not still experienced Tet holiday without savoring pickles. As a magnet, the more pickles we eat, the more other dishes we want to eat due to its attracting taste. It is possible to state that the pickles are a special part of Vietnamese cuisine, and especially in the Tet holiday as it has entered a Vietnamese folk song: “Fatty pork, pickles, and red parallel sentences; Neu tree, a bunch of firecrackers, and green square cake.” Shouting this folk song will give all Vietnamese people the idea that you are mentioning the Tet holiday. Primary ingredients for the pickles are small onions and scallion heads. Making the food is not difficult but requires your carefulness. Before removing the peels and roots of the onions or scallion heads, you need to reduce their acrid smell by putting them in water and ash within two days and two nights. Later, soak them in the mixture of water, sugar, salt, and vinegar for ten days. It’s actually stunning to try.
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