Special Food for the Tết Festivities

We often have these cakes on the new year's day. and these cakes has an interesting story

Once upon a time, the Hùng Vương VI (Hùng King VI) held a competition among his princes to select the best candidate to rule the country. He asked his sons to find the special and meaningful dishes to celebrate the New Year’s Day. All of the princes were very busied with preparation with the hope that the king would select their dishes.

The 18th prince's name was Lang Liêu. He was a kind and gentle person. However, his mom has passed away since he was a child. He was very worried about this competition because his mom was not there to give him any advice. One day, he saw the God in his dream. The God told him that he should use rice to make the special dishes for the competition. Rice was the main food in our country, that's why rice was really precious.

The God told Lang Liêu to make 2 kinds of cakes with different shapes. One was square (chưng cake) and the other was circle (dày cake - we don’t make these cakes anymore. The square represented to the earth and the circle represented to the sky. The cakes were made of rice - main food in Vietnam, and were cover by leaves to show the protection among people.

These cakes have caught the king's attention for both their tasted and meanings. As a result, the 18th prince became the new king of the country.

How to make chưng?

The chưng cakes are made of rice, pork and green bean. Meat and bean are placed in the middle of the cakes and covered by rice. We use the leaves to cover the cakes. These cakes are cooked in 10-12 hours. These cakes can still be good after cooked for several days. (the last picture is one slice of the cake. The leaves have turn the color of rice from white to green)

Tet Food - chưng cake ingredients

making chưng cake

Tet Food - chưng cake

Tet Food - chưng cake

Tet Food - chưng cake

Tet Food - chưng cake

chưng cake

Vietnamese people often cook a lot and eat all the foods on the new year days. We believe that if we have lots of food at the beginning of the year, we will be wealthy for the whole year.

You can find this meal with similar dishes from any family. We have chưng cake, spring roll, soup with pig skin and carrot, boiled chicken, ....

Each Family may add or remove some dishes based on their own tastes but mostly dishes stay the same from one family to other.