When the weather is colder, the whole country is covered by peach flower and ochna intergerrima; it is for Lunar New Year. Tet foods are the most unique and diverse Vietnamese foods that best represent and reflect the traditional cuisine. Here are traditional Vietnamese foods in Tet holiday – the most important holiday for Vietnamese people.
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Vietnamese Traditional Foods In Tet Holiday
1. Banh chung (Vietnamese Square Sticky rice cake)
This is the cake in Vietnam food culture since long time ago. According to the old legends, banh chung appeared on the Hung dynasty. This cake symbolizes the ground expressing gratitude to the ancestors and the earth, sky. Besides, it emphasizes the important role of rice and nature in water rice culture. In contrast to the fast food in modern life, the process of making banh chung is time consuming and requires the contribution of several people. Family members often take turns to keep a watch on the fire overnight, telling each other stories about Tet of past years.
Main ingredients are glutinous rice, pork meat, and mung beans wrapped in a square of bamboo leaves that will give the rice a green color after boiling. The sticky rice must be very good and was soaked in water in the previous day. Rice cake is wrapped in square shape, and the wrapping power must be neither tight nor loose. Then the cake will be boiled in about 12 hours by wood. It has nutrition with an original tasty flavor and may be kept for a long time. Eating banh chung with vegetable pickles will bring you unforgettable taste.
2. Gio cha (Vietnamese sausage)
Gio cha is another common item on the traditional Tet menu and is often eaten with starchy food. Like banh chung, Vietnamese sausage is wrapped in banana leaves and needs to be unwrapped before consumption. There are three common kinds of this sausage including gio lua (sausage made of ground pork, first class fish sauce and black pepper), gio bo (made of purred beef) and gio thu (made of pork meat, ear, nose, tongue, cheek, and wood ear mushrooms). The mix of ingredients are boiled or steamed carefully. The roll is cut into pieces and serve cold. This type of food is also used as fillings of Vietnamese sandwich, sticky rice or banh chung…
3. Thit Kho Trung (Vietnamese Braised Pork with Eggs)
Pork is cut into cubes and soak in garlic, fish sauce, sugar, and coconut water. The eggs are used in this dish because it symbolizes the goodness and happiness. Eggs are hard-boiled and peeled. The pork and peeled hard-boiled eggs are cooked in a pot for a few hours, then served with vegetable pickles.
4. Vegetable pickles
Pickles play an important role in Vietnamese cuisine. There are many kinds of pickles for Tet Holiday that may be made of onions, carrots, garlics, turnips, etc. For a sound mind in a sound body, make sure you include pickled vegetables such as dua hanh (pickled spring onions), dua chua (picked mustard cabbage) and dua gia (pickled bean sprouts) in the feasts on the first days of the lunar new year.
5. Mut Tet
Mut Tet (Tet jam) is not a food to serve in a meal during Tet holiday, but more like a snack to welcome guests in this special period. Mut is always kept in beautiful boxes and placed at the table in the living room, and it is the main food for the owners and guests to taste when they’re talking, enjoyed over a cup of tea. Unlike Western jam, which is usually in liquid form and served with bread, “Vietnamese jam” is mainly in dry form, usually dried fruits and some kind of seeds (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, watermelon seeds). This once-in-year mix of snack is very large in variety, with so many tastes: ginger, carrot, coconut, pineapple, pumpkin, lotus seed, star fruit, sweet potato. Nowadays, cake and sweet are slowly replacing jam in Tet period, but many people still love the taste this unique food – an angle of Vietnamese culture.
6. Ga Luoc (Boiled chicken)
This is another popular Tet food that is easy to make. Boiled chicken is basically a whole chicken boiled to the color of pale yellow. The chicken is not to be eaten until it had been placed on the altar to pay homage to their ancestors.
Afterward, the chicken is cut to smaller parts like a turkey in the west. Because Vietnamese people often simply boil the chicken with only water, it is often eaten with a tiny dish of salt, thinly-sliced lime leaves, some lime juice and sometimes a bit of sliced chili as side seasoning.
