An effective tip is mixing sweet potato into the rice flour dough. It adds color and keeps cakes soft even the next day. Additionally, when cakes float during boiling, reduce the heat and cook slightly longer for thorough cooking.
Banh Troi and Banh Chay mark Vietnam's Cold Foods Festival on the 3rd day of the 3rd lunar month, a localized day of honoring ancestors with these cakes.
Khụ Sự Chà, the Hà Nhì New Rice Festival in Mường Nhé, Điện Biên, thanks ancestors with floating cakes, pig liver divination and glutinous rice pounding.
An overview of Vietnamese traditional cuisine by region: Tet dishes, ancestral trays, festivals, vegetarian food and local specialties, with cultural context.
The Tay are Vietnam's largest ethnic minority. They live in northeastern valleys, speak a Tay-Thai language, worship ancestors, and hold long tong festivals.
Dong Chi is the 22nd solar term and the shortest day of the year. For the Chinese community it is Tết Đông Chi, a time for che troi nuoc and ancestor worship.
How to set out Ram thang Gieng (first full moon) offering trays at home: how many trays, vegetarian or savory dishes, order of offering, layout and taboos.
Tet cakes differ across Vietnam's three regions: the North has banh chung and banh phu the, the Center has banh to and banh in, the South has banh tet.
The legend of bánh chưng and bánh giầy: Lang Liêu, son of a Hùng king, offers cakes of glutinous rice. Where the tale is recorded and what it explains.
Southern bánh tét is a signature Tet offering that symbolizes prosperity and family reunion. See its origins, meaning and traditional wrapping methods.
Southern and northern Tết Eve worship differ in the outdoor Heaven altar, the indoor tray and offerings, with origins, meaning and how to prepare each.
Outdoor and indoor New Year's Eve offerings differ in who is invited, where the rite is held and the prayer text. Each region has its own symbolic dishes.
Year-end tạ đất rites are usually held outdoors in the yard, indoors only in cramped homes; offerings vary by region, with no fixed number of chè bowls.
Many families burn a little votive paper after the year-end offering; the hóa vàng send-off comes on Tet days 3 to 7. The tray can go indoors or outdoors.
The full-month ceremony falls one lunar month after birth; by custom boys hold it one day earlier, girls two. How to count it, an example, and offerings.
Where Tet couplets come from, where Vietnamese families pasted them (door, pillars, ancestor altar), and the basic rules of parallelism for writing one.
A guide to preparing New Year's Eve offerings, arranging the outdoor and indoor trays by Vietnamese custom, with safety notes and regional differences.
Cúng tất niên is the year-end offering that thanks the ancestors and sees off the old year: the day, the trays of three regions, the prayer and its meaning.
The rite on the afternoon of the 30th of Tet invites ancestors home for the New Year. North, Central and South differ mainly in the feast and the fruit tray.
The ông Công ông Táo ceremony on the 23rd of the 12th lunar month sends the three Kitchen Gods to heaven to report on the family's deeds to the Jade Emperor.