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''Bánh chưng'' is a traditional Vietnamese food which is made from
glutinous rice Glutinous rice ('' Oryza sativa var. glutinosa''; also called sticky rice, sweet rice or waxy rice) is a type of rice grown mainly in Southeast and East Asia, and the northeastern regions of South Asia, which has opaque grains, very low amyl ...
,
mung bean The mung bean (''Vigna radiata''), alternatively known as the green gram, maash ( fa, ماش٫ )٫ mūng (), monggo, or munggo (Philippines), is a plant species in the Fabaceae, legume family.Brief Introduction of Mung Bean. Vigna Radiata ...
s,
pork Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the domestic pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE. Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved ...
and other ingredients. Its origin is told by the legend of Lang Liêu, a prince of the last
king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen regnant, queen, which title is also given to the queen consort, consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contempora ...
of the Sixth Hùng Dynasty, who became the successor thanks to his creation of ''bánh chưng'' and ''
bánh giầy (it can also be written as written as or ) is a Vietnamese traditional cake. is a white, flat, and round glutinous rice cake. They are wrapped in cut pieces of banana leaves. They are usually served with a type of Vietnamese sausage . can be ...
'', which symbolized, respectively, the
earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's sur ...
and the sky. Considered an essential element of the family altar on the occasion of ''
Tết Tết (), short for Tết Nguyên Đán ( Chữ Hán: 節元旦), Spring Festival, Lunar New Year, or Vietnamese Lunar New Year is one of the most important celebrations in Vietnamese culture. The colloquial term "Tết" is a shortened form of ...
'', the making and eating of ''bánh chưng'' during this time is a well-preserved tradition of Vietnamese people. Beside the ''Tết'' holiday, ''bánh chưng'' is also eaten all year round as Vietnamese cuisine.


Origin and Symbolism

According to the book ''
Lĩnh Nam chích quái ''Lĩnh Nam chích quái'' ( vi-hantu, 嶺南摭怪 lit. "Selection of Strange Tales in Lĩnh Nam") is a 14th-century Vietnamese semi-fictional work written in Han scripts by Trần Thế Pháp. The title indicates strange tales "plucked fro ...
'' (''Extraordinary stories of Lĩnh Nam'') published in 1695, the creation of ''bánh chưng'' was credited to Lang Liêu, a prince of the last Sixth Hùng Dynasty of the Hùng dynasty (c. 1712 - 1632 BC). It was said that in choosing a successor among his sons, the monarch decided to carry out a competition in which each prince brought a delicacy representing the sincerity for the ancestors on the occasion of ''Tết'', whoever could introduce the most delicious dish for the altar would become the next ruler of the country. While other princes tried to find the rare and delicious foods from forest and sea, the eighteenth prince, Lang Liêu, who was the poorest son of the Hùng king, could not afford such luxurious dishes and had to be content with everyday ingredients, such as rice and pork. He created one cake in the square form of earth called ''bánh chưng'' and one in the round form of sky called ''
bánh giầy (it can also be written as written as or ) is a Vietnamese traditional cake. is a white, flat, and round glutinous rice cake. They are wrapped in cut pieces of banana leaves. They are usually served with a type of Vietnamese sausage . can be ...
'' from these simple ingredients. In tasting the dishes offered by his son, the Hùng king found ''bánh chưng'' and ''bánh giầy'' not only delicious but also a fine representation of the respect for ancestors. Therefore, he decided to cede the throne to Lang Liêu and ''bánh chưng'', ''bánh giầy'' became traditional foods during ''Tết''. Lang Liêu founded the Seventh Hùng dynasty (c. 1631 - 1432 BC). Considered an indispensable dish of ''Tết'', ''bánh chưng'' is placed on the family altars to honor the family ancestors and pray to them for support in the new year. Wrapped in a green square package, ''bánh chưng'' symbolizes the
earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's sur ...
, the various ingredients of ''bánh chưng'', which come from all the products of nature, also emphasize the meaning of ''bánh chưng'' with Vietnamese people.


Ingredients and presentation

The required ingredients of ''bánh chưn''g are
glutinous rice Glutinous rice ('' Oryza sativa var. glutinosa''; also called sticky rice, sweet rice or waxy rice) is a type of rice grown mainly in Southeast and East Asia, and the northeastern regions of South Asia, which has opaque grains, very low amyl ...
,
mung bean The mung bean (''Vigna radiata''), alternatively known as the green gram, maash ( fa, ماش٫ )٫ mūng (), monggo, or munggo (Philippines), is a plant species in the Fabaceae, legume family.Brief Introduction of Mung Bean. Vigna Radiata ...
, fatty
pork Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the domestic pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE. Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved ...
and
black pepper Black pepper (''Piper nigrum'') is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, known as a peppercorn, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is a drupe (stonefruit) which is about in dia ...
,
salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quant ...
, sometimes green
onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the on ...
, and '' nước mắm'' for salty taste. In the wrapping stage, one needs ''
lá dong ''Stachyphrynium placentarium'' is a species of plant in the family Marantaceae. Its basionym was ''Phyllodes placentaria'' Lour.de Loureiro J (1790) ''Fl. Cochinch.'' 1: 13. and was subsequently long placed as various species in the genus ''Phr ...
'', strings split from giang, one type of bamboo which has long node, and sometimes a square mold in wood so that ''bánh chưng'' can be wrapped in a better shape, ''lá dong'', which is popular only in Southern Asia, can be substituted by
banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", disting ...
leaves or even '' lá bàng''. ''Lá dong'' and ''giang'' strings have to be washed carefully in order to preserve the taste of the cake, ''giang'' strings may be soaked in water or steamed so that they become flexible enough for wrapping and tying. People often choose high quality rice and beans for making ''bánh chưng''. The mung beans are soaked in water for approx. 2 hours and the glutinous rice for 12 to 14 hours. The mung beans are drained, cooked and mashed into a paste. The fat in the pork is preferred for ''bánh chưng'' because its fatty flavor associates well with the glutinous rice and mung beans. After being sliced in approx. half-inch thick strips, the pork is mixed with pepper, onion, salt and ''nước mắm''. Sugar can also be added to this mixture of spices. The cake is wrapped in the following order. First, the ''giang'' strings and two ''lá dong'' leaves are placed as the square base for the ''bánh chưng''. Then glutinous rice is stuffed in ''lá dong'', followed by mung bean, pork, more mung bean and finally another layer of rice so that bean and pork can be respectively in the center of the cake. The ingredients are carefully wrapped in ''lá dong'' and bound by ''giang'' strings in the square form. In order to get a near perfect square-shaped cake, the maker can use a square mold to help in the wrapping and pressing the ingredients to fill the corners of the square mold. To keep the cake from
mold A mold () or mould () is one of the structures certain fungi can form. The dust-like, colored appearance of molds is due to the formation of spores containing fungal secondary metabolites. The spores are the dispersal units of the fungi. Not ...
or being spoiled, ''bánh chưng'' should be wrapped as tight as possible. The prepared cakes are arranged in a large pot (with recommended spacing between cakes, using chopsticks, bamboo or other spacers). The pot is filled with fresh water and boiled for hours until they are cooked thoroughly. As the water evaporates during cooking, more boiled water should be added to keep the cakes submerged at all time. The outer-most layer of rice turns green because the rice absorbed the color of ''lá dong''. One ''bánh chưng'' is often divided into 8 (triangular shaped) or 9 (square shaped) pieces, usually by using the very ''giang'' string that bounded the cake. As the cake was formed from several ingredients, the taste of ''bánh chưng'' varies from part to part with different flavors of glutinous rice, pork, bean and even the wrapping ''lá dong''. ''Bánh chưng'' is often served with pickled onions or vegetables, ''
chả lụa ''Chả lụa'' (() or ''giò lụa'' () is the most common type of sausage in Vietnamese cuisine, made of pork and traditionally wrapped in banana leaves. Production and consumption Traditionally, ''chả lụa'' is made of lean pork, potato s ...
'' and '' nước mắm''. After unwrapping, ''bánh chưng'' remains edible for several days when stored in the refrigerator, while an unopened one can be kept for up to two weeks in the refrigerator. ''Bánh chưng'' can also be frozen and thawed again for consumption, though the quality is not as good as a fresh cake. ''Bánh chưng'' has the
water activity Water activity (''aw'') is the partial vapor pressure of water in a solution divided by the standard state partial vapor pressure of water. In the field of food science, the standard state is most often defined as pure water at the same tempe ...
value aw of about 0.95 and its pH is approximately 6.4. File:Nguyen lieu banh chung.jpg, The prepared ingredients of ''bánh chưng'' File:Goi banh chung (dung khuon).jpg, Wrapping ''bánh chưng'' using a mould File:Bánh chưng.jpg, An unwrapped ''bánh chưng'', cut into 8 pieces, ready to serve File:Bánh chưng và giò lụa.jpg, ''Bánh chưng'' is served with ''
chả lụa ''Chả lụa'' (() or ''giò lụa'' () is the most common type of sausage in Vietnamese cuisine, made of pork and traditionally wrapped in banana leaves. Production and consumption Traditionally, ''chả lụa'' is made of lean pork, potato s ...
'' and other dishes


History and tradition

''Bánh chưng'' is always considered an essential element of a traditional ''Tết'', which is described by a popular
couplet A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...
: Women wear '' áo dài'' for their tradition. Traditionally, ''bánh chưng'' requires a preparation of many ingredients, each Vietnamese family which can afford such a preparation begins to make the cake from the 27th or 28th day of the December (''tháng Chạp'') in
Lunar calendar A lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the Moon's phases ( synodic months, lunations), in contrast to solar calendars, whose annual cycles are based only directly on the solar year. The most commonly used calendar, t ...
. In making ''bánh chưng'', all members of the family gather to perform different tasks, from washing the ''lá dong'', mixing the pork with spices, preparing the mung beans and most important wrapping all ingredients into the square form and boiling the cakes. ''Bánh chưng'' needs to be carefully boiled for ten to twelve hours during which the adults and children sit together around the boiling cauldron. In the countryside, to ensure that ''bánh chưng'' is available for every family even the poor ones, a fund called ''họ bánh chưng'' is jointly set up and about one month before the ''Tết'', the accumulated capital and benefit are divided between members of the fund so that they can have enough money to prepare ''bánh chưng''. Nowadays, the tradition of self-made ''bánh chưng'' gradually declines in Vietnam when the size of a typical family is smaller and people do not have enough time for the preparation and making of ''bánh chưng''. Instead, they go to the ''bánh chưng'' shop or order cakes in advance from families that specialize in making them. Therefore, ''bánh chưng'' still appears in each family during the Tết but they are not a family product any more. With the shift of ''bánh chưng'' making from family to specialized manufacturers, some craft villages became famous for their reputation in making ''bánh chưng'' such as ''Tranh Khúc'' village or ''Duyên Hà'' village both in Thanh Trì,
Hanoi Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi i ...
. Each year, on the occasion of the Death anniversary of the Hung Kings, a competition of making ''bánh chưng'' and ''bánh dày'' is often organized in Hùng Temple,
Phú Thọ Phú Thọ () is a district-level town in Phú Thọ Province, Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland ...
. Participants from eight different regions including
Lào Cai Lào Cai () is a city in the Northwest region of Vietnam. It is the capital of Lào Cai Province. The city borders Bảo Thắng District, Bát Xát District, Sa Pa and the city of Hekou Yao Autonomous County, in Yunnan province of southw ...
, Hanoi and
Cần Thơ Cần Thơ, also written as Can Tho or Cantho (: , : ), is the fourth-largest city in Vietnam, and the largest city along the Mekong Delta region in Vietnam. It is noted for its floating markets, rice paper-making village, and picturesque r ...
are provided with 5 kg of glutinous rice, bean, 1 kg of pork so that they can make 10 ''bánh chưng'' in 10 minutes, the product of the winning team will be present in the official altar of the festival. In 2005, bánh chưng makers in
Ho Chi Minh City , population_density_km2 = 4,292 , population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2 , population_demonym = Saigonese , blank_name = GRP (Nominal) , blank_info = 2019 , blank1_name = – Total , blank1_ ...
offered Hùng Temple a pair of giant ''bánh chưng'' and ''bánh giầy'', the size of the ''bánh chưng'' measured 1.8m x 1.8m x 0.7m (71 x 71 x 27.5 inches) and weighed 2 tonnes after cooking, it was made in Ho Chi Minh City and subsequently transferred to Phú Thọ.


Variations

While being normally eaten warm or at room temperature, ''bánh chưng'' may be also fried up and served in form of crisp pancake called ''bánh chưng rán or bánh chưng chiên'' (fried ''bánh chưng''). The writer Vũ Bằng in his book ''Thương nhớ mười hai'' (Longing of the 12 months) mentioned ''bánh chưng rán'' as a delicious dish during the cold February of Hanoi. In some regions, instead of ''bánh chưng'', people make ''
bánh tét ''Bánh tét'' is a Vietnamese savoury but sometimes sweetened cake made primarily from glutinous rice, which is rolled in a banana leaf into a thick, log-like cylindrical shape, with a mung bean and pork filling, then boiled. After cooking, the ...
'' which is a cylindrical cake with almost the same ingredients as ''bánh chưng''. A similar cake as ''bánh tét'' is made in some regions in the North but with the name '' bánh tày'' or ''bánh chưng dài'' (long ''bánh chưng''). Bánh tày is often made with small quantity of mung bean and little or no pork so that it can be preserved for a longer period, ''bánh tày'' can be cut in slices and fried like ''bánh chưng rán''.
San Diu people The Sán Dìu (also known as San Deo, Trai, Trai Dat and Man Quan Coc; ; Chữ nôm: ; Vietnamese alphabet: Người Sán Dìu) are a Yao ethnic group in northern Vietnam who speak Yue Chinese (Cantonese), a Sinitic language. They are believed ...
has another variation of the long ''bánh chưng'' with a hump in the middle of the cake, hence it is called ''bánh chưng "gù"'' ("humped" ''bánh chưn''g), besides ''lá dong'', ''bánh chưng "gù"'' is wrapped by an additional type of leaf named '' lá chít''. There are ''ye boi'' variations of ''bánh chưng'' for
vegetarians Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetarianism ma ...
and
Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
s which do not contain pork such as ''bánh chưng cha''y (vegetarian ''chưng'' cake) or ''bánh chưng ngọt'' (sweeten ''chưng'' cake), instead of pork, these cakes are stuffed with
molasses Molasses () is a viscous substance resulting from refining sugarcane or sugar beets into sugar. Molasses varies in the amount of sugar, method of extraction and age of the plant. Sugarcane molasses is primarily used to sweeten and flavour foods ...
or
brown sugar Brown sugar is unrefined or partially refined soft sugar. Brown Sugar may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Brown Sugar'' (1922 film), a 1922 British silent film directed by Fred Paul * ''Brown Sugar'' (1931 film), a 1931 ...
. For these variations, sometimes they mix glutinous rice with '' gac'' so that the cake can have a red skin which is more appetizing. In the countryside, ''bánh chưng chay'' was once made by the poor families who could not afford the pork for stuffing, they replaced pork by
cardamom Cardamom (), sometimes cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genera '' Elettaria'' and '' Amomum'' in the family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. They ar ...
, black pepper and cooked mung bean, this type of ''bánh chưng'' was eaten with molasses.


See also

*
Bánh tẻ ''Bánh tẻ'' (literally "rice cakes" in Vietnamese; also called ''bánh răng bừa'') is a variety of small steamed rice cake in Vietnamese cuisine. It is a traditional variety of ''bánh'' from the Red River Delta region of northern Vietn ...
*
List of rice dishes This is a list of rice dishes from all over the world, arranged alphabetically. Rice is the seed of the monocot plants ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). As a cereal grain, it is the most widely consumed staple foo ...
*
List of steamed foods This is a list of steamed foods and dishes that are typically or commonly prepared by the cooking method of steaming. Steamed foods * Ada – a food item from Kerala, usually made of rice flour with sweet filling inside. * Bánh – in Hanoi ...
*
List of stuffed dishes This is a list of stuffed dishes, comprising dishes and foods that are prepared with various fillings and stuffings. Some dishes are not actually stuffed; the added ingredients are simply spread atop the base food, as one cannot truly stuff an oy ...
* Lo mai gai * Pamonha *
Tamale A tamale, in Spanish tamal, is a traditional Mesoamerican dish made of masa, a dough made from nixtamalized corn, which is steamed in a corn husk or banana leaf. The wrapping can either be discarded prior to eating or used as a plate. Tam ...
*
Zongzi ''Zongzi'' (; ), ''rouzong'' () or simply ''zong'' (Cantonese Jyutping: ''zung2'') is a traditional Chinese rice dish made of glutinous rice stuffed with different fillings and wrapped in bamboo leaves (generally of the species ''Indocalamus t ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banh Chung New Year foods Vietnamese words and phrases Steamed foods Stuffed dishes Rice cakes Vietnamese pork dishes Bánh Legume dishes Vietnamese rice dishes