One more day and it will be the year of the Snake. I love our traditional Tet celebration and every year around this time, it brings nostalgia from my childhood. I remember, weeks before New Year, my mom would start to prepare so many different things to get ready for the New Year feast. From fermented shallots, "cu kieu", fermented vegetables (dua mon), to sweet coconut, tamarind and kumquat candies. She also prepared pork stew with eggs (Thit kho tau), stuffed bitter melon soup (canh kho qua), fermented beansprout (dua gia) and mustard green (dua cai chua) for these are the staples of our traditional Vietnamese New Year foods. We, kids would love to enjoy these foods, wearing new clothes and receiving the lucky money in the red envelops from adults on New Year day.
Now that I am all grown up and have children of my own, I want to pass on these wonderful memories of our traditions to them. Hopefully, one day they will also realize how valuable these memories are from their childhood. Therefore, I have tried to learn how to make these wonderful rice cakes (banh tet) along with many other New Year dishes so I can teach them a thing or two about our culture to keep the "Tet" spirit in them.
To be honest, the process of making these rice cakes (banh tet) are very time consuming and complicated, specially for rookies like me. This is only my third year making them, so my skills still have a lot to improve since I only had one chance a year to make them. So to enhance my skill, each year I keep on increasing the amount of rice cakes and that helps with my practice. It also means that I will be able to share more of my hard-work products to my friends and family. So, here to a great year of success and prosperity for everyone!
