Eating the Vietnamese New Year
By VnExpress January 19, 2017 | 12:11 pm GMT+7
Believe it or not, Tet is very much about how much you can stomach.
Vietnam’s Lunar New Year festival is just several days away and some of you may be wondering what it’s all about.
Eating.
Seriously.
Vietnamese don't "celebrate" Tet. We “eat Tet.” Some "play Tet,” which most interpret to mean we are eating and drinking Tet.
Here's a list of some of the stuff you can expect to eat.
Sticky rice cakes
Everywhere you go, expect to an offer of banh chung.
This meat and bean-filled sticky rice gets steamed and wrapped in a big dong (Phrynium placentarium) leaf. To be honest, it's dense enough to stop a bullet. As the days of Tet wane, people take to deep-frying pieces of it, which (naturally) makes it better.
Most shape these cakes into a thick square as a nod to the traditional belief that the Earth was square and the sky was round.
Legend has it that the recipe was invented four thousand years ago while a king was trying to figure out who was next in line.
He ordered his sons to come up with a meaningful recipe and the simple mix of sticky rice, mung beans and pork outdid all other offerings—presumably a lot of exotic animals stuffed into other animals.
The king's choice made banh chung a central part of the Lunar New Year.
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