ABSTRACT
Tet, the Lunar New Year, is the most important holiday in Vietnam. It is a 3day holiday in late January or early February where glutinous rice cakes are tra ditional and symbolic. There is also a 3-day festival called Water Buffalo Slaughter, National Day, Reunification Day, Teachers’ Day, Children’s Day, Christmas, religious holidays, and more. Special foods for holidays and special events include abalone soup called sup bao ngu, stuffed rice cakes filled with meat and beans that are boiled in banana leaves called bank trung, and mui or candied fruits. Foods are brought graveside to ancestors on the anniversary of their deaths. After the spirits enjoy the essence, the family eats the food there, sharing a meal with their loved one(s). At weddings, there are also offerings to the ancestors, and after them the couple shares a cup of tea and a betel nut to symbolize that they are one. On Children’s Day, or Trung Thu, special cakes are served as are nuts and fruits. The cakes are made with a sticky rice exterior filled with raisins, peanuts, and tangerine peel. Sunday, or family gathering days, are popular, and many complex dishes are served for them, including a cook-ityourself-type dish called ta pli lu. To eat it, everyone sits around a huge pot of bubbling stock and cooks raw chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, squid, and fresh veg etables; then they share the enriched soup stock adding bean sprouts, herbs, chilies, and the like. Jasmine or another scented tea is served after this Viet namese hot pot, along with fresh fruit served whole or cut in pieces.
