Linh Son Pagoda’s banh for the Lunar New Year
Linh Son pagoda, Houston, click on the image to see more pictures of the pagoda.
Linh Son pagoda, Houston. Click on the image to see more pictures of the pagoda.
Although not all Vietnamese living oversea can take a day off to go to the pagodas on the first day of Tet, many manage to keep the tradition. Of course there is no strict requirement that one has to be looking at and praying to the Buddha at a certain day, for a certain amount of time, or with a certain prayer. Tet is not a religious based tradition. But many Buddhist and even non-Buddhists like to go to the pagodas on the first day of Tet to have a peaceful start of the new year, to feel spiritually lightened (hopefully enlightened as well) and pure on the important day. Many also choose to eat no animal product on this day, as it’s the new spring and every creature deserves to be happy and live in peace. Nonetheless, vegan restaurants are somewhat scarce in the conservative town, places with banh chung banh tet for sale don’t generally make the vegan version, and to deprive a Vietnamese of banh chung banh tet on a Tet’s day is somewhat cruel. So the pagodas take on the precious task.
Dua mon is pickled vegetables, here packaged in jars, and apparently on sale for $5? I believe I haven’t had dua mon. I’m not big on veggies in vinegar-sugar-salt mix, the only exception to me is pickled bean sprout (dua gia). But perhaps because every house during Tet is so overabundant with meat and glutinous rice, the dua being a bit tart, a bit sweet, crunchy, and light is a nice change in both taste and texture. In fact, with its economic nature and longevity, a big jar of dua on its own makes Tet in poor households.
Back to the star of Tet food. The square ones are banh chung, the cylindrical ones are banh tet. Banh chung is wrapped in dong leaves, banh tet is wrapped in banana leaves (theoretically). Banh chung declothed:
and quartered:
Mother got to the banh tet before I did, with a knife. I was 5 minutes too late to grab the camera. So here, in all gruesomeness, six “khoanh” of banh tet:
If you’re wondering, yes, their basic structure, except for the shape, is the same. Thick coat of glutinous rice outside, simple mung bean paste inside, since these are vegan banh made and sold at the pagoda. The meaty version of banh chung has lean pork amidst the bean paste, and that of banh tet has fatty pork. The outermost rim of glutinous rice is somewhat greenish yellow, naturally dyed by the leaves wrapping them and the long cooking process, in which they are submerged in water for hours. Banh chung was born in the North of Vietnam over 2000 years before Jesus was born, and especially made for Tet and Tet only. It even has a myth to explain its symbolism. Banh tet was its little brother, made for easy cooking and carrying, more popular in the South, available in one form or another all year long. The rice layer is soft and gummy, the bean paste middle is a little salted and sweetened. It’s vegan, but it doesn’t lack flavor. It’s really really heavy though. One khoanh of banh tet for breakfast and I was full from 10AM until 7PM! I would have been starved otherwise, classes all day, and school cafeterias don’t serve vegan food. That means if you like to keep yourself reasonably full, with 6 bucks you are full for 3-6 days of banh tet, and 4-8 days of banh chung. Pretty good huh?
Hi there, You have done a fantastic job. I will definitely digg it and for my part recommend to my friends. I am sure they will be benefited from this site.
1Great blog! Is your theme custom made or did you download it from somewhere? A design like yours with a few simple tweeks would really make my blog shine. Please let me know where you got your design. Thank you
2I appreciate, cause I found exactly what I was looking for. You’ve ended my 4 day long hunt! God Bless you man. Have a great day. Bye
3Hi , I do believe this is an excellent blog. I stumbled upon it on Yahoo , i will come back once again. Money and freedom is the best way to change, may you be rich and help other people.
4I have read several good stuff here. Certainly worth bookmarking for revisiting. I wonder how a lot attempt you set to make one of these wonderful informative web site.
5I’m really inspired together with your writing talents as neatly as with the format for your blog. Is this a paid subject matter or did you modify it yourself? Either way stay up the nice quality writing, it’s uncommon to peer a nice blog like this one these days..
6Do you have a spam problem on this blog; I also am a blogger, and I was wondering your situation; many of us have developed some nice methods and we are looking to exchange strategies with other folks, why not shoot me an e-mail if interested.
7We are a group of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community. Your web site provided us with valuable info to work on. You have done an impressive job and our whole community will be thankful to you.
8Of course, what a great blog and enlightening posts, I will bookmark your website.All the Best!
9excellent points altogether, you simply gained a brand new reader. What would you recommend about your post that you made some days ago? Any positive?
10Hey very cool web site!! Man .. Excellent .. Amazing .. I’ll bookmark your web site and take the feeds also…I am happy to find so many useful information here in the post, we need develop more techniques in this regard, thanks for sharing. . . . . .
11Hey there just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The text in your post seem to be running off the screen in Chrome. I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue or something to do with internet browser compatibility but I thought I’d post to let you know. The layout look great though! Hope you get the issue resolved soon. Kudos
12Perfect piece of work you have done, this website is really cool with fantastic information.
13Thank you for the sensible critique. Me & my neighbor were just preparing to do a little research about this. We got a grab a book from our area library but I think I learned more clear from this post. I’m very glad to see such fantastic info being shared freely out there.
14Aw, this was a very nice post. In concept I want to put in writing like this additionally – taking time and precise effort to make an excellent article… however what can I say… I procrastinate alot and in no way seem to get something done.
15