Double ta-leo for bamboo rice

(Baonghean) - Since ancient times, bamboo rice has been chosen as one of the indispensable gifts in the official marriage customs of the Thai people. When the representative of the groom's family and the matchmaker come to the bride's house to perform the "xan nha" ceremony (xan nha: means commitment, engagement - this ceremony is only performed once, a short time before the official wedding) - in addition to other gifts, they must prepare 2 beautiful, even bamboo rice tubes, which can be decorated. But Thai custom also stipulates that, in addition to the usual leaf knot on the mouth of the bamboo rice tube, it must also be protected by a double-woven handle.

The double-cage style of ta-leo weaving usually requires a trick, but in each village there are still a few people who are skillful in whittling bamboo and know how to weave it beautifully. The “double-cage ta-leo” is tied upside down to the mouth of the tube with 2 soft giang strings, each string is tied a short distance apart. The Thai people believe that ta-leo has the function of exorcising evil spirits, driving away ghosts and demons. The ta-leo knot is used to prevent evil spirits along the way, so that they cannot “penetrate” the bamboo rice tubes to secretly “enjoy” them first, keeping the bamboo rice tubes “intact and clean” until they are offered to the ancestors of the bride’s family. In this case, it is easy to see that the bamboo rice tubes have been used by the Thai people to highlight and honor the integrity and virginity of the couple’s happiness. The “orthodoxy” expressed in this is related to the details, when the two bamboo tubes of sticky rice used for the “xan nha” ceremony must be selected from two separate bamboo trees and cannot be used together. Only in a legitimate marriage (a man and a woman who are still young and have not “stolen their parents’ permission” and voluntarily agreed to come together as husband and wife) do the Thai people have the “xan nha” ceremony and use sticky rice…

The reason it is called bamboo rice is because the rice is cooked in bamboo tubes, sometimes in bamboo tubes, bamboo tubes, bamboo tubes... But bamboo tubes are still the most used because bamboo grows abundantly, is easy to cut and trim, and has suitable crops for making bamboo rice tubes at any time of the year. The best are young bamboo trees with a diameter of about 3 centimeters, growing in places with a lot of light. The selected bamboo tubes must be relatively uniform in size; the mouth of the tube must be at the base, the bottom of the tube must be at the top of the bamboo tree.

Rice used to cook bamboo rice is usually upland sticky rice or purple sticky rice. The rice is soaked and a little salt can be added. Fill the tube with rice until it is a few finger joints above the mouth, then add a little water until it is just above the rim. The mouth of the tube is covered with wild banana leaves and then the rice is cooked.

“Lam” is the act of placing the bamboo tube slightly tilted over the hot coals or close to the fire, then paying attention to turning it frequently so that the tube receives enough heat to cook the things inside without burning the tube shell. The person in charge of “laminating” the rice must therefore be a hard-working, patient, and skillful person to “lam” delicious and beautiful bamboo tube rice tubes. These are tubes with the fragrant smell of just-cooked sticky rice, the tube shell is only slightly burnt. People use a thin knife to split off the burnt shell, keeping only the thin white shell inside. When eating, you can easily peel off this shell by hand (more elaborately, use a knife to cut it into slices like pork roll).

Bamboo rice can be eaten while still hot, depending on conditions and taste, people dip it with peanut salt, sesame salt, galangal salt, with dry crumbs of "cheo xup" (cheo xup: a type of "cheo" made from unripe sweet taro leaves, dried - very fragrant if made properly), and even without eating it with any "cheo", any "salt" is still delicious as usual. If using bamboo rice as a dry food for hunting animals in the forest, finding bees... then leaving the whole tube of bamboo rice intact for a week can still be used and eaten as usual.

The Thai dish of bamboo rice has been crowned as the “best Thai cuisine”. And for hundreds of thousands of years, these “best” bamboo rice tubes have not only fed people, but have also been taking on the noble responsibility of building bridges of happiness for many couples in Thai villages, nurturing their lives to flourish forever.

Sam Van Binh

(Yen Luom, Chau Quang, Quy Hop)