In these days leading to the Lunar New Year (Tet) festival, many establishments making ‘banh chung’ (square glutinous rice cakes) and ‘banh tet’ (cylindrical glutinous rice cake) across Da Nang are hastily producing the festive delicacy for upcoming much-waited occasion.

Since the 25th day of the 12th lunar month, a cake making facility, owned by Le Thanh Toan and his wife Le Thi Bich Lieu, located at alley No 104 / 28 Le Dinh Ly in Thanh Khe District Vinh Trung Ward, has been busy making ‘banh chung’. Toan’s family has hired part-time workers to make preparations, including cleaning banana leaves, wrapping and cooking cakes.

According to Mrs Lieu, her family-run facility has chucked out 500 square glutinous rice cakes and the same number of cylindrical glutinous rice cakes which are sold for 50,000 VND apiece.

Like Mrs Lieu’s, Mrs Phan Thi Mau's facility at alley 158A /14 Tran Cao Van in Thanh Khe District’s Tam Thuan Ward are racing against time to complete orders of ‘ banh chưng’. This facility has employed experienced labourers, mainly from the well-known An Tuyen village in Thua Thien Hue Province which has the time-honoured tradition of making ‘banh chung’ and ‘banh tet’. A worker is seen stirring mung beans before adding seasonings to them.

‘La dong’ (dong leaves), sticky rice, mung beans and pork are all well prepared to make these Traditional Vietnamese glutinous rice cakes. Making the cakes is a time-consuming process.

Soak crushed mung beans in water for 2-4 hours, wash away the husks, cook, grind them.

Take about a cup of the mashed mung beans, spread out on a saran wrap, add a few pieces of pork lean and fat and wrap it up shaping into a round or square piece.

Normally, ‘banh chung’ is wrapped up in frames to make square shape cakes. The wrapping of ‘banh tet’ is somewhat more complicated than that of ‘banh chung’

To assemble, laying out 6 sheets of partially overlapping banana leaves so that the spinal veins of the leaves are parallel. The darker side of the uppermost sheets faces up. Place about a cup of rice along the length of the leaves. Place the filling on top of the rice. Then cover it up with another cup rice.

The cake is tied with more strings to make sure the banana leaves will not fall apart.

At Mrs Mau’s cake making establishment, ‘banh tet’ is priced at 60,000 VND each, whilst ‘banh chung’ costs 30,000 VND and more.

According to experienced cake makers, ‘banh chung’ is placed over ‘banh tet’ in the large-sized cooking pot. After being boiled up for 13 hours, the cakes are dipped into cold water and quickly taken out so that they will dry more quickly.