The hearth on New Year's Eve

(Baonghean) - A culinary researcher, based on observations of the kitchens of the three regions of Vietnam—Central, Southern, and Northern—has sought to understand the character of the people in each area. He noted that the most common aspect of Vietnamese cuisine is its simplicity, usually consisting of plain rice with fish sauce, soy sauce, and vegetables... Occasionally, a little fat and meat are added. People eat two main meals and one snack a day. The morning snack is usually light and consists of colorful foods like boiled corn, sweet potatoes, and cassava. Nghe An province has a specialty: sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are prepared in many ways; raw sweet potatoes are sliced ​​and dried to make sweet potato paste, which is eaten with sesame seeds, peanuts, or pickled vegetables. Nghe An is also famous for Thanh Chuong pickled jackfruit, a type of sour pickled fruit mainly made from the fibers of young jackfruit, seasoned with ginger and onions. The midland region has many canarium and palm trees; eating the crunchy canarium or palm fruit with sesame seeds and peanuts adds fat and protein to the meal. There is a soup common to all three regions: mixed vegetable soup, which is both delicious and nutritious. The soup contains young shoots of the vông tree and mulberry leaves, which are believed to nourish the heart and promote sleep. This is a mixed vegetable soup: water spinach, amaranth, jute mallow, sweet potato leaves, betel leaves, gourd shoots, pumpkin, loofah, etc., cooked with a little dried shrimp, dried fish, and freshwater crab, making it an unforgettable culinary experience. There's a folk saying: "A mixed vegetable is delicious - A mixed child is wise." On New Year's Eve, the whole family gathers around the fire, boiling sticky rice cakes. My mother had prepared the sticky rice for the cakes long ago. But what she most desired was the fragrant glutinous rice from Hung Yen, known for its abundance of lotus and longan, or the fragrant glutinous rice from Nghia Lo, which stays sticky throughout the New Year – unmatched by any other rice. My father, on the other hand, wished for the leaves used to wrap the cakes to be the broad, thick, and worm-free leaves of the dong tree, which grow along the streams and under the sun at the foot of the old forest. These dong leaves are wide, thick, and rich in chlorophyll, giving the cakes a beautiful ivory-green or jade-green color. The bamboo strips used to tie the rice cakes are made from a variety of forest wood, long and thin. These strips, freshly stripped, are white, flexible, and fragrant with the scent of the forest. When tied, they stay securely in place without loosening or coming loose due to the fire. The firewood used for cooking the rice cakes is also carefully selected, preferably oak or longan wood, to ensure a strong, fragrant fire. This is because cooking rice cakes doesn't require a large fire, but rather a sustained heat to allow the black peppercorns, mung beans, and marinated pork belly to absorb the flavors, creating a rich and savory filling.

Illustration: Hong Toai

From the afternoon of the thirtieth day of the lunar year, we children would gather around to watch my father wrap the sticky rice cakes (bánh chưng). My father meticulously wrapped hundreds of them, each one identical, a truly beautiful sight. He always set aside a few small cakes for us as a blessing, small but still filled with meat and beans, and still neatly tied with string. And then the solemn moment arrived. My mother lit the fire. The pile of tree stumps from the previous month, stacked on the kitchen shelf, was so dry that you could almost hear the crackling sound as the flames touched them, beginning the sacred ritual. The warm fire shot out tiny sparks like tiny firecrackers, dispelling the cold, biting dust of everyday life, purifying the spirit of the old year and ushering in the new year with the bubbling, joyful sound of the sticky rice cakes. The sticky rice cake is a complete work of art, imbued with the spiritual legend of the nation, encapsulating the essence of heaven and earth with rural delicacies, and also a nutritious and wholesome creation. It embodies the culinary essence of all three regions of Vietnam, even though the names differ (for example, the Southern version is called bánh tét (round)), but the quality inside is the same – just a variation to suit each region.

The hearth in the final days of the year is also associated with a special ritual: the New Year's Eve bath. The pot of water contains many leafy vegetables, but especially coriander, which the mother has bought at the market. The New Year's Eve bath is also a way to wash away the old and welcome the new year with new clothes, new gifts, and, of course, freshly made small sticky rice cakes. After the bath comes the New Year's Eve dinner, the most delicious and sacred meal of the year. Those far away return to gather, and the New Year's Eve feast from the traditional kitchen cannot be without delicious dishes such as jellied meat, braised beef, braised carp with ginger, pickled onions, bamboo shoot soup, pork sausage, spring rolls, and more. On the ancestral altar, there is always a plate of five kinds of fruit, and on New Year's Eve, a rooster is offered. Especially noteworthy are the many types of cakes such as sticky rice cakes, ash cakes, sticky rice cakes, honey cakes, jams, and sweet soups... The sweetness of the cold days at the end of the year permeates our hearts. The sweetness is not only that of sugarcane syrup, but also the warm, heartfelt sweetness of human connection, evoking memories of our ancestors in the sweet fragrance of incense.

Now that I'm far away, I miss the kitchen fire on New Year's Eve even more. I remember the smoke-stained walls, the jumble of farming tools, the bubbling sound of the steaming rice cakes in the flickering firelight. Around me now, I only see kitchens tiled with ceramic and glass, with gleaming brass and stainless steel appliances – spaces devoid of spirit, devoid of memories, cold and emotionless objects whose only value is convenience. The rice cakes I bought from the supermarket are frozen solid, and I yearn for those small, steaming rice cakes...

Nguyen Ngoc Phu (Ha Tinh)