I've been told that in Vietnamese culture, people might not know on what day they were born. In contrast, they hold an enormous celebration to observe the day of an ancestor's death. To prepare for these celebrations, family and friends gather and cook enough dishes to feed a hundred people.
One of these dishes is bánh tét, a glutinous rice and filling mixture wrapped in banana leaves and cooked for hours. It's usually served for new years, hence the name tét. To prepare this dish requires many skills: preparing the ingredients, wrapping and binding the rolls, and boiling them--in this case, the ability to cook over a fire is another crucial skill. We got the chance to try our hands at making these savory and sweet rolls during a return trip to Vĩnh Long, to observe an annual death anniversary for the mother of the husband of Lữ's cousin.
As before, we traveled into the Mekong Delta by bus, and arrived at the house of Lữ's aunt, Dì Tư, on Friday. As before, Dì Tư welcomed us outside, hustled us into the house, and cracked open a coconut for each of us before spreading a heap of food on the table for our dinner. She made sweet grilled pork with lemongrass, and a chicken soup with bamboo shoots and green onions. Bamboo shoots happen to be in season; for the best bamboo, you have to go to the farmer, because the stuff in the market could be a few days old. For dessert, Dì Tư sliced open some yellow Thai rambutans and the sweetest longyans I've ever had. Bellies stuffed, we washed and headed for bed early, to be up around dawn and on our way to the cousins' to help make bánh tét.
In the morning, we rode scooters to the cousins' beautiful newly built house, nestled between a south-flowing cocoa-colored river and an orchard teeming with pomelo, green skinned oranges, papaya, and limes. Lu's cousin and several ladies I hadn't met before sat by the kitchen door and spread bowlfuls of a glutinous rice mixture of dried coconut, salt, sugar and green onion onto squares of banana leaf. Outside, her husband shoveled dirt from a trench, which is where he later put the footing for a wall. He looked up, saw me, smiled, and waved. Lu's cousin offered us iced coffee. I said, if it's no trouble. Her husband put down his shovel, started the kettle, cracked the ice, and assembled four mugs of coffee the color of milk tea.
Making bánh tét is a social occassion, an event that draws many helpers. Every square inch of cooking space in the kitchen was occupied by someone assisting in the preparation. The immediate reasons for all the helpers is obvious--I would estimate that it takes a skilled person about 10 minutes to fill and wrap a single roll. The ladies made more than 50, which would have taken one person an entire day to prepare. But the purpose of gathering to make bánh tét is more than pragmatic. People get together to because a common purpose instills a sense of community. Lữ observed that sense is missing in Vietnamese-American households, remembering all the times her mom would make bánh tét alone.
We sat on the floor and watched the bánh tét-making process. The rice mixture is spread on a banana leaf, then a doughy yellow stick of mung bean paste or short sweet bananas in syrup is laid on the rice. The whole banana leaf-rice-filling package is rolled up tight, bound three times, then tied up like a roast. The cord comes from a pretty little plant with a green, grassy crown. Depending on the way each bánh tét is tied, there will be either one or two braids of grass hanging from one end of the roll, which tells you what's inside--one braid for banana, two for beans.
While Mike and Lữ tried their hands at tying the rolls of bánh tét, I watched one of the ladies to pick up techniques and listened to hear what challenges met Mike and Lữ in their attempts. Apparently, it's bad to tie the rolls too loosely. Keeping this pointer in mind, I put some muscle into the task when I started to tie one up. My first couple of ties were nice and tight, and the banana leaf bulged from between the wrappings, with evenly-spaced bindings. But as I got to the middle of the roll, thick mikly coconut-rice liquid seeped from the bottom of the roll. My hands slipped from the viscousy goo, and the cords broke as I tried extra hard to keep hold. What started out as a neatly tied roll began to turn into a mess, which did not go unnoticed. My misfit bánh tét sent the ladies into fits of laughter.
I felt my face flush in my embarrassment. My first chance to do something in front of all these new people, and I screwed it up. I know I'm not supposed to take getting laughed at too seriously. I also know that the laughter wasn't scornful or mocking. If anything, it was supposed to be supportive, in a weird and unfamiliar way. But I'm hardwired by childhood tragedies to see getting laughed at as anything but supportive. I still have demons of public failure and ridicule to overcome.
Not everyone took notice of my mess-up with the bánh tét. The slapping sound of small feet on tile announced the arrival of a four-year-old boy who sprinted into the kitchen. With a buzz cut and bright orange polo, he crouched to slurp a strawful of iced tea from a thermos bucket among the grasslike strands on the floor. The kid was naive and clumsy, which made him fun to watch. I have to admit--actually, I hate to admit it--but the joy I felt in watching this little plodding kid probably wasn't much different from the joy the ladies felt in watching my blundering with the bánh tét binding. And, it kind of helped to drive the lesson home, too.
All the rolls, both one-braided and two, went into a 50-gallon pot to boil over a fire. Eight or nine hours later, the bánh tét was cooked, hanging to cool, and ready for the death anniversary on the following day. We got a preview taste, and sliced open a banana one to find the sugars had carmelized to a rich maroon color, and the rice had taken on a hint of green. It was absolutely beautiful. And now, we'll be taking home the recipe to cook them ourselves. For me, however, my first order of business when I get back will be to post pictures first.
