Vietnam Food & Drinks in Special Events

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Blog Team Friends Travel Vietnam • September 17, 2020

Food can't be missed during Tet

Food is very important in Vietnam and it shouldn’t be Vietnam if there weren’t special events based on food!

Tet is the Vietnamese New Year and one of the most important celebrations in the Vietnamese culture. Tet consists of visiting family or friends, giving and receiving lucky money and of course food. It is also an occasion for pilgrims and family reunions. They start forgetting about the troubles of the past year and hope for a better upcoming year. Tet is based on the Vietnamese calendar and falls in January of February.

The Vietnamese prepare Tet by cooking special holiday food, such as:

Xôi gấc (Gấc Sticky rice )

A close up of a plate of red rice on a table.

Bánh chưng (Chưng Cake)

A collage of four pictures showing different types of green food

Thịt nấu đông (cold meat)

A white plate with a flower shaped food on it

Thịt gà luộc (Boiled chicken)

A chicken is sitting on a white plate with green onions and pineapple.

Nem rán (deep fried spring roll)

A basket filled with fried spring rolls and a bowl of dipping sauce.

Giò Lụa - pork sausage wrapped in banana leaves

A close up of a sausage wrapped in banana leaves on a banana leaf.

Canh Măng ( Bamboo soup )

A bowl of soup with meat and vegetables and chopsticks on a wooden table.

Rau xào thập cẩm (Stir fried vegetables)

A close up of a plate of vegetables on a table.

Canh bóng mọc ( Bóng mọc soup)

A bowl of soup with shrimp and vegetables on a table.

Chè Kho ( soft green-lentil cake )

A plate of food with a slice taken out of it on a table.

Mid-Autumn Festival !

What and what?

The festival is held on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar with full moon at night. Children show their gratitude to the old generation and parents show their love for their children. A new school year starts in the Autumn, so children get many presents for good luck.

A group of children are holding lanterns in front of a large star.

A dragon that brought rain?

Vietnamese believed that children, who are innocent and pure, had the closest connection with the natural world. So if you were close to your children, you had a way to connect with animistic spirits and gods.

Celebrants observed the moon to divine the future of the harvest and people.

The dragon brought rain for the crops at the evening and the Vietnamese observe the moon to look into the future and divine the harvest. The celebration of the festival is for fertility, increase in livestock, human babies and a bountiful harvest.

Nowadays, the festival has an identity as a children's festival. Children light lanterns and wear lions / clown masks or a princess / prince costume. In the evening of the full moon, dances are performed by non-professional and professional groups. The 'lion dance' is for luck and fortune.

A bunch of lanterns are lit up at night in a park.

Food during the festival

The significant food for this festival is mooncakes. They symbolize happiness, health, luck and wealth on the Mid-Autumn day. They come in two varieties: bánh nướng và bánh dẻo. Traditional cakes are often green beans (or lotus seeds) or mixed beans (with ham, saffron, lemon, jelly, grease, etc.). Cake boxes usually consist of two kinds of cakes. These two are eaten together.

There are many different types of mooncakes on the table.

Cold Food Festival: Banh troi (floating cake)- Banh Chay

When and what?

This traditional festival takes place on the 3rd day of the third lunar month in the year. The occasion for family gathering and remember the ancestor.

Story behind

The story behind the Banh troi cake is that people said that it was created from the spirits of their ancestors. They eat the cake while burning incense to have a moment for the ‘’Au Co’’ mother. Au Co Mother gave birth to 100 eggs which hatched 100 babies.

Food

The two significant cakes are banh troi and banh chay. Banh troi is made of glutinous rice flour with a piece of sugar inside. Banh chay has instead of sugar a sweet green bean paste and is also a bit bigger. These cakes will be eaten while burning incense to invite the ancestor to enjoy the Cold Food Festival with the family.

A plate of white balls with sesame seeds on top on a table.

Vietnamese Kitchen Gods: A love affair retold

When and what?

This is an amazing love story of two people. Held once a year on the 23rd day of lunar December or January 20. To bid to the gods a nice farewell and to report the family’s affairs to the emperor, families hold big feast on that day

''She threw herself into the flames''

The story is about a man and a woman who were in love. Unfortunately, the relationship turned sour because they were unable to have a child. The woman decided to move to another region and married someone else.

The old husband felt loneliness and sorrow and went to look for his wife after a while. He gave everything up and even had to start begging for money and food.

By chance, he arrived at his woman’s and her second husband's house. By the time the woman found him, her husband was working in the fields. She immediately recognized him and took him inside. His hunger and illness made him partially blind, so he didn’t recognize his former wife.

He drunk some wine and become feeling sleepy. The woman took him into the courtyard and to avoid embarrassing questions from her husband, she hid him under heap of straw.

Late in the afternoon when her husband came back, he set fire to the straw to make fertilizer from the ashes. Before the wife could respond, her first husband had been engulfed in flames.

She threw herself into the flames in sorrow and despair, and her new husband also jumped into the fire. The Emperor of Heaven, moved by the feelings that united the three people, made them household gods.

How?

The red carp is a typical fish that is needed for the journey. Thousands of sparkling fish can be found at markets across Vietnam around ten days before Tet.

Many villages spend half of the year raising red carp to send them on their heavenly travels, which takes one week until the gods come back to join their families. So if you spot someone releasing a red carp into a river lake, some probably still stuck in plastic bags, you know there is a big love story behind.

A person is feeding a fish from a plastic bag into a pond.

Tet Doan Ngo

When and what?

Doan Ngo is held on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in the year. This day is to celebrate a new period with health, clarity and clearness. Vietnamese think that this is the right time because it is the time of transition from spring to summer. Also the time with many insects and diseases that have a good condition to develop.

Habits

Immediately after waking up, they eat glutinous rice. People eat lotus seeds, fruits, ashes and drink rice wine to kill diseases and insects. Vietnamese celebrate a new period, the the clarity and clearness.

When anyone has the flu, they use five kind of leaves: cactus, quince, eucalyptus, mulberry and lemon juice. People also buy bamboo shoots to evict evil spirits in the house.

Food

The traditional dish during Doan Ngo Tet festival is ash cake in central and south Vietnam. Ash cake has many different names such as whiskey, cakes and cakes and there are several different variants in tune. The rice cakes made from ash are burned with dry wood or straw, wrapped in banana leaves. Ashes are easy to eat, easy to digest intestines, often eaten with sugar or honey.

In the north, families often make dishes with duck. The days before and during Tet, people are busy buying ducks. Alcohol or wine is also a favorite dish during Doan Ngo. Drinking alcohol or eating sticky rice will kill insects.

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