Ha Giang (VNA) – Visiting the no﷽rthern mountainous province of Ha Giang, tourists are encouraged to try “banh chung gu” ((hunchback glutinous rice cake). 

As ‘banh chung’ (square glutinous rice cake) is an indispensable part of the celebration of the Lunar New Year (Tet) festival of the ethnic majority Kinh, the Red Dao ethnic group in Ha Giang have their own version. The Red Dao cake is known as ‘banh chung gu”. The name of the cake reflects the image of a woman carrying a basket on her back, bending to the hard work in her field. In this way, the Red Dao praise the hard work of the people there, particularly local women. Unlike the square glutinous rice of the Kinh, which often includes a frame made of six wild dong (phrynium placentarium) leaves cut in the forest to wrap the cake, the Red Dao uses only one leaf because each cake is the size of a fist, weighing from 100 to 150 grams only.

The cake is made of sticky rice, green beans, pork from local black pigs wrapped in dong leaves. The glutinous rౠicꦜe should be soaked in water overnight and the bacon, with fish sauce, salt, and pepper for several hours to ensure the cake is sticky and delicious. To make the cake green, the leaves should be fresh and washed clean.

The cake is wrapped with forest dong leaf, sticky rice is spread evenly on the leaf, then beans, bacon, and spices are added sufficiently.  After folding the two edges of the leaf to create the shape of the cake, housewives tie it with bamboo strings and then cook it for about eight to ten hours. Local people boil cakes with traditional wood stoves, not electric ones. After being boiled for hours, the meat turns soft while the rice is sticky. It is said to carry the flavour of the mountains. According to local people, delicious chung cake must be boiled very well. When grabbing a bite, people can feel all the flavor of fragrant marinated pork, green beans mixed with sticky glutinous rice grown in mountainous areas. In the past, the cake was only cooked for the Lunar New Year festival but now locals make the cake for sale year-round. Many households have expanded the production of chung cake, creating a stable source of income for local people and contributing to promoting Ha Giang tourism. In addition to the chung cake, other specialties of the province are steamed rice rolls with egg and Thang Co which is made from pork (beef or horsemeat is an alternative), its organs, some herbs, and seeds. Besides, five-corlour sticky rice and rice cooked in bamboo pipes are also must-try local specialties. The five-colour glutinous rice is special in that it contains the culinary hues of white, purple, green, yellow, and red, and used on special occasions in Vietnam, such as Lunar New Year, weddings, and death anniversaries. The dish is usually presented in the shape of a flower with five petals, as a way to show affection and respect for parents, grandparents, and ancestors./.