Soft and fragrant Vinh Hoa Chung cake

Green Chung cake from the village to the "internet"

The Vinh Hoa rice vermicelli and cake village has been famous since ancient times. The village's products from rice, sticky rice such as rice vermicelli, wet cake, and square cake are rarely absent from the local and neighboring markets. There were also times when households in the village had to stop making cakes because of food shortages. Later, when the economy developed, Yen Thanh rice granary became the place to supply rice for the whole province and neighboring regions, and the square cake village was revived. By 2008, this place was recognized as a traditional craft village.

From ancient times to the present, everyone in Vinh Hoa village, from the elderly to the children, knows how to wrap banh chung. Many of the elderly are now blind, but when their children and grandchildren prepare the ingredients, their hands still quickly and carefully wrap them. Grandchildren watch their grandmothers wrap, children watch their parents wrap, and then the craft of wrapping banh chung has become ingrained in their blood without them even realizing it. The children go to school during the day, and at night they help their mothers wipe leaves, split bamboo strips, pick beans, and peel onions so that the ingredients can be prepared early the next day. Many older children can help their mothers wrap banh chung with skillful techniques, quickly, beautifully, and firmly. The atmosphere of wrapping and cooking banh chung is bustling throughout the countryside.

More than 200 households in Vinh Hoa make banh chung every house to sell or eat during holidays and Tet. However, only about 80% of households practice this profession professionally. There are also families that have passed it down from father to son for 3 generations. In the father's generation, banh chung was only sold in village and district markets, but in the children's generation, the business is more advanced, more market-oriented, and therefore the business efficiency is also greater.

In the past, any corner of the rural market in the rice district rarely lacked the presence of Vinh Hoa banh chung. Nowadays, Vinh Hoa banh chung goes far away in Hanoi, Vinh Phuc, even up to Ha Giang, some people even freeze it to send abroad, helping children far from home feel the taste of Tet in their homeland. The women and mothers in Vinh Hoa village said: When sending banh chung far away, we always take great care to make the cake thicker, preserve it longer and contain the heart and affection of Vinh Hoa children for people far away. Therefore, the cake reaches the recipient warmly and is much more fragrant.

Ms. Phan Thi Khuong - a long-time baker said: I have been in this profession for 18 years, since I followed my husband to Vinh Hoa. I learned to wrap cakes from my mother-in-law, and gradually I took over her business. In the past, there were many difficulties, people making cakes had to pull carts to carry cakes everywhere. At 4am, people in the village called each other to go to the market near or far. Some people delivered to Nam Dan, Vinh City, and some went all the way to Ha Tinh. I remember back then, every day when a batch of cakes was sold out, I was very happy, and even happier when someone asked for my phone number to order cakes. Then, gradually the cakes received the love of people everywhere, the work of delivering and selling on the street also became more comfortable and professional.

Ms. Khuong also said that green banh chung from this small village has gone online and spread everywhere. Now, Vinh Hoa villagers are very familiar with receiving orders through social networking sites, so the income from the cake making is always stable, especially when holidays and Tet come, the whole village can't keep up with the wrapping. Like her family, during Tet, on average, they make up to 4,000 cakes a day, more than 10 ovens are busy cooking day and night, people unpack the cakes, wrap the cakes, split bamboo strips, wipe leaves, cut beans, slice meat... without ever resting. “During Tet, we only sleep about 2-3 hours a day. There are always about 10 people making cakes, plus about 3-4 assistants. It is hard work, but no one complains, because it is the career that comes from our parents, our generation, and maybe our children. Having a career passed down from father to son is the pride of any Vinh Hoa child,” Ms. Khuong confided.

Sad, happy cake career

Every job has its ups and downs. For Ms. Khuong - 18 years of being a daughter-in-law of Vinh Hoa, also 18 years of being a skilled baker, she said that the saddest thing about this job is when customers criticize the cakes, lose old customers, or when regular customers suddenly do not choose the cakes she makes.

Sometimes she imported cakes for a shop owner, who took the cakes she made and advertised that they were the ones who made those fragrant and flavorful cakes, then resold them to customers at exorbitant prices, double or one and a half times higher. Sad and happy stories intertwined as a part of life vividly present in the green Chung cakes. But then, overcoming all of that with her passion for the job, now, wherever she goes, people remember the name of Ms. Khuong's cakes with many compliments.

A few steps away from Ms. Khuong's house is Ms. Phan Thi Thu Hoai's family, who has been making banh chung for more than ten years. Ms. Hoai is a kindergarten teacher, married into Vinh Hoa for nearly 20 years, initially only helping her husband's family, then taking over the business of making banh chung. Because she started later, and during the transition of the market, she had a hard time finding new customers. Thinking back to about 5 years ago, at that time, her family had to travel far to deliver banh chung, every day starting at dawn carrying a cart of banh chung in the cold, hoping to make it to Sa Nam market in time. However, when she reached Cau Cam area, her tire suddenly blew out, looking around and seeing no one to help, she had to walk and pull the cart of about 100 banh chung. The cart was heavy, and she was weak, so she gritted her teeth and pushed the cart until the inner tube was exposed outside the tire but still could not find a place to patch it. Just like that, she dragged her bike for about 10 km before finding a repair shop. When she finished, it was already noon, the market was over, so she had to drag her bike home!

Hoai has many happy and sad stories about her baking career. Her house is located in a low position, and one year, floodwaters flooded into the house, rising very quickly, while the baking oven was still burning. At that time, her husband was away, and she had no time to react, the water rose high and extinguished the oven. "At that time, tears were about to flow, the whole batch of cakes was all her capital and effort, but luckily, the neighbors helped in time, each person gave a hand, the baking oven was raised high and was lit brightly, and the cakes were cooked in time" - Hoai recalled.

According to the women and mothers in Vinh Hoa village, to have a delicious banh chung, it is not only about choosing sticky rice, fresh meat, rich green beans, and very old shallots, but also about the secrets passed down from father to son. That is why, even though it is the same banh chung, also from Vinh Hoa village, each family has its own taste, and a discerning eater can recognize which family's cake it is from. According to Ms. Hoai, Vinh Hoa banh chung is delicious because when you bite into the cake, the sticky and fragrant taste of sticky rice blends with the rich taste of green beans, with a little spiciness of shallots, chili peppers and the rich aroma of pork belly, all creating the flavor of heaven and earth...