Across the S-shaped strip of land, each region has its own unique types of banh chung.
Meat and beans are common ingredients, but the filling is made from fish. Probably few places use it. Yet the Tay people in Bac Kan have a very special dish to worship their ancestors on the full moon day of the 7th month every year.
Local people also call it peng ho – cake At first hearing, many people will imagine that the dish inevitably has a fishy taste because it is made from fish.
Ms. Thu Huyen was born in 1996 of the Tay ethnic group and currently lives in Na Ri district. It is unclear when this dish came into existence, but every year on the occasion of the 7th lunar month, people here organize full-moon offerings on the tray of rice to offer to their ancestors. Traditional banh chung is indispensable.
Indispensable ingredients for making banh chung are upland sticky rice, field carp stocked in ginger leaf fields or laksa leaves, fatty meat and some basic spices.
Every 5th and 6th month of the lunar calendar, when people grow rice, they will release field carp into the fields . They grow naturally without needing any fertilization. Near the full moon day of the 7th lunar month, the villagers told each other to go to the fields to get fish to make cake filling. This type of fish is only as small as 2 fingers” said Ms. Huyen.
In Bac Kan, only the Tay people in Na Ri and Ba Be districts make this cake. But it depends on habits and preferences. Some families use ginger leaves, others prefer laksa leaves to remove fishiness.
Fish after being slaughtered and cleaned Mixed with some spices and ginger leaves. The way to wrap the cake is no different from traditional banh chung. It’s still sticky rice with dong leaves, add some fatty meat to make the filling fatty, then wrap it in a round shape like banh tet and boil it for 12 minutes. up to 15 hours.
After boiling the fish filling until the bones are cooked, the fat layer also melts and blends into the cake and ginger leaves. Then the ladies will take the cake and hang it on a bamboo pole to wait for it to drain .
Even though you eat it cold, the smell of the cake blends with the ginger leaves so there’s almost no fishy smell left. The fish is soft and the greasy taste of the fat and fragrant sticky rice is not afraid of choking on the bones.< /p>
This type of cake is also picky for people to eat. Those who are not familiar with it may find the strange taste different from traditional banh chung. But for those who are used to eating it, they find it addictive, the more they eat it, the more they grind it,” Ms. Huyen shared.
According to Ms. Huyen, this type of cake is almost only available in Na Ri and Ba Be districts in Bac Kan. It rarely appears in other localities so few people know about it. The cake is not commonly sold and is only made on the full moon day of the 7th lunar month. On weekdays, customers who want to eat the cake have to order it in advance.
On Local traditional Tet My local still packs banh chung with bean paste and meat like many other places. There are also banh chung filled with red peanuts, which is also strange,” Ms. Huyen added.
The price of banh chung filled with carp is also slightly higher than the regular kind. The type weighing about 1kg costs about 50,000 VND while local banh chung is only about 35,000 – 40,000 VND.
Photo: Tran Thi Thu Huyen
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