I've just spent ten days in Cambodia and Laos ! I did this trip without any electronics so got some posts coming up to bring you all up to date. This one will be about the Thursday before my trip; making chung cakes at Thai Phien high school. Making chung cakes represents well the preparation that took place before tet and is unique to Vietnam.
On Thursday morning we arrived to Thai Phien high school in our ao dais. It didn't take a minute till we were in front of the camera. The main event of the Thursday's celebration was a chung cake making competition.
Chung cake is a traditional dish eaten during the tet holiday. My gallop confirms that nearly everyone loves this cake. The cake consists of four main ingredients; special leafs, sticky rice, green peas and pork meat. Luckily, I got to take part in this competition and am now somewhat an expert!
The cake is made into a square wooden frame. First, the leafs are carefully folded into the frame to from the base of the wrapping for the cake. Once you have your leafs in place, you have to pour a cup of raw sticky rice on the leafs and pad it tightly. Then you must add the beans. Two slices of pork are added between two layers of beans, followed by another cup of rice. Chung cake is boiled for 10 - 12 hours so the wrapping has to be really tight. The leafs are folded around the cake like on a Christmas gift. The package is tied with thin bamboo straps. After observing different ways of making the cakes it became clear to me that it is all about the style of the maker and small details. My team had our peas cooked and kneaded into a tight ball whereas other teams used raw, lose peas. Also, there are different ways of folding the leafs into the frame as well as in making the ties with the bamboo strings.
I was able to try two different ways of wrapping the cakes, and eventually, I was really happy with the result. Before tet these cakes are sold on the streets for 50 000 VND (2 euros) each. Once cooked, one cake weights about a kilo. The cake is meant to be shared by eight people.
Each of the competing teams make 20 chung cakes and packed them tightly into huge pots. We left our students to guard the cakes for the evening and picked our own ones up on Friday morning. I didn't personally try the cake since I am a vegetarian but apparently they were good.
Later about my tet-holiday!
Mira
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