Banh Chung
Encyclopedia
Bánh chưng is a traditional Vietnamese cake which is made from glutinous rice
, mung bean
, pork
and other ingredients. Its origin is told by the legend of Lang Liêu, a prince of the sixth Hùng Vương
, who became Hùng Vương's successor thank to his creation of bánh chưng and bánh dày, which symbolized respectively the Earth
and the Sky. Considered an essential element of the family altar on the occasion of Tết
, the making and eating bánh chưng during this time is a well-preserved tradition of Vietnamese people. Beside the Tết holiday, bánh chưng is also tasted all year round as a delicacy of Vietnamese cuisine and one of the national dishes of Vietnam besides nem rán and phở
.
) published in 1695, the creation of bánh chưng was credited to Lang Liêu, a prince of the sixth Hùng Vương
. It was said that after the victory against the army of Shang Dynasty
, in choosing a successor among his sons, Hùng Vương decided to carry out a competition in which each prince brought a delicacy representing the sincerity for the ancestors on the occasion of the 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 Hùng Vương, could not afford those luxury dishes and had to content with the everyday ingredients such as rice or pork. Finally, he created one cake in the square form of earth called bánh chưng and one in the round form of sky called bánh dày from these simple ingredients. In tasting the dishes offered by his son, Hùng Vương found bánh chưng and bánh dày not only delicious but also a fine respresentation of the respect for ancestors. Therefore he decided to cede the throne to Lang Liêu and bánh chưng, bánh dày became traditional foods during the Tết.
Considered an indispensable dish of the Tết, bánh chưng is placed in the family altars in order to honour the ancestors and pray them to support the family in the new year. Wrapped in a green square package, bánh chưng symbolizes the Earth
, the variant ingredients of bánh chưng which comes from all the products of nature also emphasize the meaning of bánh chưng with Vietnamese people.
, mung bean
, fatty pork
and black pepper
, salt
, sometimes green onion
, and nước mắm for spices. In the wrapping stage, one needs lá dong, strings split from giang, one type of bamboo which has long node, and sometimes a square mould in wood so that bánh chưng can be wrapped in a better shape, lá dong, which is popular only in the Southern Asia, can be substituted by banana
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 salt water or steamed so that they can become flexible enough for wrapping. People often choose high quality rice and bean for making bánh chưng, they are soaked in water for 2 hours in case of mung bean and 12 to 14 hours in case of glutinous rice. The fat and lean pork is preferred for bánh chưng because its fatty flavour well associates with the glutinous rice and mung bean. After being sliced in big parts, pork is mixed with pepper, onion and salt or nước mắm. People in Bắc Ninh
once added sugar in this mixture of spices.
The cake is wrapped in the following order. Firstly the giang strings and two lá dong leaves are placed as the square base for the bánh chưng. After that, glutinous rice is stuffed in lá dong, followed by mung bean, pork and finally another layer of rice so that bean and pork can be respectively in the center of the cake. All placed 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 mould of square form as the base for the wrapping. To keep the cake from mold
or being spoiled, bánh chưng should be carefully wrapped as tight as possible.
The prepared cakes are tightly arranged in large pot, the pot is filled with fresh water and boiled for hours until they are done from the inside stuffing to outside. After cooling and unwrapping, the rice skin of bánh chưng turns green because rice has absorbed the colour of lá dong. To achieve this appetizing colour, some manufacturers even place batteries
with bánh chưng in the boiling pot. One bánh chưng is often divided in 8 parts, usually by using the very giang string which bound the wrap of the cake. As a cake formed from several ingredients, the taste of bánh chưng varies from part to part with different flavours of glutinous rice, pork, bean and even the wrapping lá dong. Bánh chưng is often served with pickled onions or vegetables, giò lụa and nước mắm. After unwrapping, bánh chưng can stay good for several days while a wrapped one can be kept for two weeks. Bánh chưng has the water activity
value aw of about 0.95 and its pH
is approximately 6.4.
:
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
. In making bánh chưng, all members of the family gather with different tasks, from washing the lá dong, mixing the pork with spices, preparing the mung bean and most important wrapping all ingredients in square form and boilling 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 families 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 which 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
.
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
. Participants from eight different regions including Lào Cai
, Hanoi and Cần Thơ 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
offered Hùng Temple a pair of giant bánh chưng and bánh dày, the size of the bánh chưng was 1.8m x 1.8m x 0.7m and 2 tonnes in weight after cooking, it was made in Ho Chi Minh City and subsequently transferred to Phú Thọ.
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
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 chưng), besides lá dong, bánh chưng "gù" is wrapped by an additional type of leaf named lá chít.
There are also variations of bánh chưng for vegetarians
and Buddhist
s which do not contain pork such as bánh chưng chay (vegetarian chưng cake) or bánh chưng ngọt (sweeten chưng cake), instead of pork, these cakes are stuffed with molasses
or brown sugar
. 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
, black pepper and cooked mung bean, this type of bánh chưng was eaten with molasses.
Glutinous rice
Glutinous rice is a type of short-grained Asian rice that is especially sticky when cooked. It is called glutinous Glutinous rice (Oryza sativa var. glutinosa or Oryza glutinosa; also called sticky rice, sweet rice, waxy rice, botan rice, biroin chal, mochi rice, and pearl rice, and pulut) is a...
, mung bean
Mung bean
The mung bean is the seed of Vigna radiata. It is native to the Indian subcontinent.-Description:They are small, ovoid in shape, and green in color...
, pork
Pork
Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....
and other ingredients. Its origin is told by the legend of Lang Liêu, a prince of the sixth Hùng Vương
Hung Vuong
Hùng Vương is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Vietnamese rulers of the Hồng Bàng) period. In antiquity this title began to be used for the ruler who was the religious and political leader of united ancient Vietnam...
, who became Hùng Vương's successor thank to his creation of bánh chưng and bánh dày, which symbolized respectively the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
and the Sky. Considered an essential element of the family altar on the occasion of Tết
Tet
Tet can mean:*Tết or Tết Nguyên Đán, the Vietnamese new year**Tet Offensive, a military campaign that began in 1968*Têt in Roussillon, France*Equal temperament, abbreviated as 12-TET, 19-TET and so on...
, the making and eating bánh chưng during this time is a well-preserved tradition of Vietnamese people. Beside the Tết holiday, bánh chưng is also tasted all year round as a delicacy of Vietnamese cuisine and one of the national dishes of Vietnam besides nem rán and phở
PHO
PHO may refer to:* Primary Health Organisation* Potentially hazardous object, an asteroid or comet that could potentially collide with Earth...
.
Legend and symbol
According to the book Lĩnh Nam chích quái (Extraordinary stories of Lĩnh NamVietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
) published in 1695, the creation of bánh chưng was credited to Lang Liêu, a prince of the sixth Hùng Vương
Hung Vuong
Hùng Vương is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Vietnamese rulers of the Hồng Bàng) period. In antiquity this title began to be used for the ruler who was the religious and political leader of united ancient Vietnam...
. It was said that after the victory against the army of Shang Dynasty
Shang Dynasty
The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty, after the Xia. They ruled in the northeastern regions of the area known as "China proper" in the Yellow River valley...
, in choosing a successor among his sons, Hùng Vương decided to carry out a competition in which each prince brought a delicacy representing the sincerity for the ancestors on the occasion of the 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 Hùng Vương, could not afford those luxury dishes and had to content with the everyday ingredients such as rice or pork. Finally, he created one cake in the square form of earth called bánh chưng and one in the round form of sky called bánh dày from these simple ingredients. In tasting the dishes offered by his son, Hùng Vương found bánh chưng and bánh dày not only delicious but also a fine respresentation of the respect for ancestors. Therefore he decided to cede the throne to Lang Liêu and bánh chưng, bánh dày became traditional foods during the Tết.
Considered an indispensable dish of the Tết, bánh chưng is placed in the family altars in order to honour the ancestors and pray them to support the family in the new year. Wrapped in a green square package, bánh chưng symbolizes the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
, the variant ingredients of bánh chưng which comes from all the products of nature also emphasize the meaning of bánh chưng with Vietnamese people.
Ingredients and presentation
The required ingredients of bánh chưng are glutinous riceGlutinous rice
Glutinous rice is a type of short-grained Asian rice that is especially sticky when cooked. It is called glutinous Glutinous rice (Oryza sativa var. glutinosa or Oryza glutinosa; also called sticky rice, sweet rice, waxy rice, botan rice, biroin chal, mochi rice, and pearl rice, and pulut) is a...
, mung bean
Mung bean
The mung bean is the seed of Vigna radiata. It is native to the Indian subcontinent.-Description:They are small, ovoid in shape, and green in color...
, fatty pork
Pork
Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....
and black pepper
Black pepper
Black pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is approximately in diameter, dark red when fully mature, and, like all drupes, contains a single seed...
, salt
Salt
In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...
, sometimes green onion
Onion
The onion , also known as the bulb onion, common onion and garden onion, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. The genus Allium also contains a number of other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion The onion...
, and nước mắm for spices. In the wrapping stage, one needs lá dong, strings split from giang, one type of bamboo which has long node, and sometimes a square mould in wood so that bánh chưng can be wrapped in a better shape, lá dong, which is popular only in the Southern Asia, can be substituted by banana
Banana
Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....
leaves or even lá bàng
Terminalia catappa
Terminalia catappa is a large tropical tree in the Leadwood tree family, Combretaceae. The tree has been spread widely by humans and the native range is uncertain. It has long been naturalised in a broad belt extending from Africa to Northern Australia and New Guinea through Southeast Asia and...
. 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 salt water or steamed so that they can become flexible enough for wrapping. People often choose high quality rice and bean for making bánh chưng, they are soaked in water for 2 hours in case of mung bean and 12 to 14 hours in case of glutinous rice. The fat and lean pork is preferred for bánh chưng because its fatty flavour well associates with the glutinous rice and mung bean. After being sliced in big parts, pork is mixed with pepper, onion and salt or nước mắm. People in Bắc Ninh
Bac Ninh
Bắc Ninh is a city in Vietnam and capital of the Bac Ninh province. The city is the cultural, administrative, and commercial center of the province. The city area is 80.82 square km, with a population of 150,331 . In January, 2006, the town of Bac Ninh was upgraded to city...
once added sugar in this mixture of spices.
The cake is wrapped in the following order. Firstly the giang strings and two lá dong leaves are placed as the square base for the bánh chưng. After that, glutinous rice is stuffed in lá dong, followed by mung bean, pork and finally another layer of rice so that bean and pork can be respectively in the center of the cake. All placed 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 mould of square form as the base for the wrapping. To keep the cake from mold
Mold
Molds are fungi that grow in the form of multicellular filaments called hyphae. Molds are not considered to be microbes but microscopic fungi that grow as single cells called yeasts...
or being spoiled, bánh chưng should be carefully wrapped as tight as possible.
The prepared cakes are tightly arranged in large pot, the pot is filled with fresh water and boiled for hours until they are done from the inside stuffing to outside. After cooling and unwrapping, the rice skin of bánh chưng turns green because rice has absorbed the colour of lá dong. To achieve this appetizing colour, some manufacturers even place batteries
Battery (electricity)
An electrical battery is one or more electrochemical cells that convert stored chemical energy into electrical energy. Since the invention of the first battery in 1800 by Alessandro Volta and especially since the technically improved Daniell cell in 1836, batteries have become a common power...
with bánh chưng in the boiling pot. One bánh chưng is often divided in 8 parts, usually by using the very giang string which bound the wrap of the cake. As a cake formed from several ingredients, the taste of bánh chưng varies from part to part with different flavours of glutinous rice, pork, bean and even the wrapping lá dong. Bánh chưng is often served with pickled onions or vegetables, giò lụa and nước mắm. After unwrapping, bánh chưng can stay good for several days while a wrapped one can be kept for two weeks. Bánh chưng has the water activity
Water activity
Water activity or aw was developed to account for the intensity with which water associates with various non-aqueous constituents and solids. Simply stated, it is a measure of the energy status of the water in a system...
value aw of about 0.95 and its pH
PH
In chemistry, pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Pure water is said to be neutral, with a pH close to 7.0 at . Solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic or alkaline...
is approximately 6.4.
History and tradition
Bánh chưng is always considered an essential element of a traditional Tết, which is described by a popular coupletDuilian
In Chinese poetry, a couplet is a pair of lines of poetry which adhere to certain rules . Outside of poems, they are usually seen on the sides of doors leading to people's homes or as hanging scrolls in an interior...
:
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
Lunar calendar
A lunar calendar is a calendar that is based on cycles of the lunar phase. A common purely lunar calendar is the Islamic calendar or Hijri calendar. A feature of the Islamic calendar is that a year is always 12 months, so the months are not linked with the seasons and drift each solar year by 11 to...
. In making bánh chưng, all members of the family gather with different tasks, from washing the lá dong, mixing the pork with spices, preparing the mung bean and most important wrapping all ingredients in square form and boilling 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 families 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 which 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
Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...
.
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
Hùng temple
Hùng temple, locating in Nghĩa Lĩnh mountain, Cổ Tích village, Hy Cương commune, Phong Châu district, Phú Thọ province, is the most sacred Vietnamese national historic and cultural complex site. Hùng temple's the place of worship Hùng Vương- the first King of Vietnam and the first son of Lạc Long...
, Phú Thọ
Phú Thọ
Phú Thọ is an urban district and town in Phu Tho province, Vietnam. As of 2003 the district had a population of 63,333. The district covers an area of 64 km²....
. Participants from eight different regions including Lào Cai
Lao Cai
Lào Cai is a city in northeastern Vietnam. It is the capital of Lao Cai province. The city borders the city of Hekou, in the Yunnan province of Southwest China. It lies at the junction of the Red River and the Nam Ti River approximately 160 miles northwest of Hanoi...
, Hanoi and Cần Thơ 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
Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh City , formerly named Saigon is the largest city in Vietnam...
offered Hùng Temple a pair of giant bánh chưng and bánh dày, the size of the bánh chưng was 1.8m x 1.8m x 0.7m and 2 tonnes in weight 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 (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 tétBánh 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 meat or vegetarian filling , then boiled. After cooking, the banana leaf is removed and the cake is sliced into...
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
San Diu people
The Sán Dìu is an ethnic group in northern Vietnam. They are believed to have migrated from Guangdong around 1600 CE....
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 chưng), besides lá dong, bánh chưng "gù" is wrapped by an additional type of leaf named lá chít.
There are also variations of bánh chưng for vegetarians
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...
and Buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
s which do not contain pork such as bánh chưng chay (vegetarian chưng cake) or bánh chưng ngọt (sweeten chưng cake), instead of pork, these cakes are stuffed with molasses
Molasses
Molasses is a viscous by-product of the processing of sugar cane, grapes or sugar beets into sugar. The word molasses comes from the Portuguese word melaço, which ultimately comes from mel, the Latin word for "honey". The quality of molasses depends on the maturity of the sugar cane or sugar beet,...
or brown sugar
Brown sugar
Brown sugar is a sucrose sugar product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of molasses. It is either an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar consisting of sugar crystals with some residual molasses content, or it is produced by the addition of molasses to refined white...
. For these variations, sometimes they mix glutinous rice with gac
Gac
Momordica cochinchinensis is a Southeast Asian fruit found throughout the region from Southern China to Northeastern Australia.-Etymology:It is commonly known as gac, from the Vietnamese gấc or quả gấc...
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
Cardamom refers to several plants of the genera Elettaria and Amomum in the ginger family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to India and Bhutan; they are recognised by their small seed pod, triangular in cross-section and spindle-shaped, with a thin papery outer shell and small black seeds...
, black pepper and cooked mung bean, this type of bánh chưng was eaten with molasses.
See also
- Bánh tẻ
- Lo mai gaiLo mai gaiLo mai gai, pronounced in Cantonese speaking regions or Nuo mi ji pronounced in Mandarin speaking regions, is a classic dim sum dish served during yum cha hours. The dish is also called steamed glutinous rice with chicken in lotus leaf wrap....
- TamaleTamaleA tamale — or more correctly tamal — is a traditional Latin American dish made of masa , which is steamed or boiled in a leaf wrapper. The wrapping is discarded before eating...
- PamonhaPamonhaPamonha is a traditional Brazilian food. It is a paste made from fresh corn and milk, boiled wrapped in corn husks. Variations may include coconut milk. Pamonhas can be savoury or sweet, the latter being the norm in north-east Brazil...
- ZongziZongziZongzi is a traditional Chinese food, made of glutinous rice stuffed with different fillings and wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves. They are cooked by steaming or boiling. Laotians, Thais, and Cambodians also have similar traditional dishes. In the Western world, they are also known as rice...