The Astronomer and I woke up super-duper early this morning to witness a very special tradition—the making of Bánh Tét. With the Lunar New Year days away, my grandma’s sister (Ba Sau) and her two daughters-in-law gathered for their annual ritual of making this holiday specialty.
Bánh tét are cylindrical sticky rice cakes filled with pork fat and mung bean paste seasoned with black pepper and shallots. The cakes are wrapped in banana leaves and as a result, the sticky rice takes on a pale green color and a slightly leafy taste. Even though bánh tét are available all year, it is still considered a New Year’s treat.
Back at home in America, no one in my family goes through the trouble of making bánh tét by hand. Seeing one of my favorite foods executed firsthand definitely gave me a greater appreciation for it.
The cake filling of pork fat and mung beans were made a day earlier and left in the fridge to stiffen. The filling was then covered with uncooked sticky rice atop banana leaves.
Ba Sau wrapping the filling and sticky rice grains in banana leaves.
Ba Sau tying the green package with some sort of natural twine. Maybe grass?
Ba Sau adding some extra sticky rice grains to the ends of the cake.
The bánh tét crew. The Astronomer called them an assembly line.
Di Loan building a fire by the side of the house to cook the bánh tét.
A large metal pot is placed atop the fire and filled with water.
Di Loan and Thi fanning the flames.
While we waited for the water to boil, we had an informal photo shoot. I forgot to wear pink pajamas!
Placing the bánh tét in the boiling water.
Extra banana leaves are placed on top of the water to keep the bánh tét from discoloring.
After six hours of boiling away, the bánh tét will be ready to eat! Photos of the finished product to come!
About: With Julia Child’s death in 2004 at age 91, her grandnephew Prud’homme (The Cell Game) completed this playful memoir of the famous chef’s first, formative sojourn in France with her new husband, Paul Child, in 1949. The couple met during WWII in Ceylon, working for the OSS, and soon after moved to Paris, where Paul worked for the U.S. Information Service. Child describes herself as a “rather loud and unserious Californian,” 36, six-foot-two and without a word of French, while Paul was 10 years older, an urbane, well-traveled Bostonian. Startled to find the French amenable and the food delicious, Child enrolled at the Cordon Bleu and toiled with increasing zeal under the rigorous tutelage of éminence grise Chef Bugnard. “Jackdaw Julie,” as Paul called her, collected every manner of culinary tool and perfected the recipes in her little kitchen on rue de l’Université (“Roo de Loo”). She went on to start an informal school with sister gourmandes Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, who were already at work on a French cookbook for American readers, although it took Child’s know-how to transform the tome—after nine years, many title changes and three publishers—into the bestselling Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961). This is a valuable record of gorgeous meals in bygone Parisian restaurants, and the secret arts of a culinary genius – Publishers Weekly