Waiting by the kitchen for the rice cakes

In the anxieties of a child far from home, fearing I might miss the spring festival, I asked myself, has Quang Nam province already begun preparing for Tet (Lunar New Year)?

Back then, around the middle of the twelfth lunar month, I would see my mother setting up the kitchen to make all sorts of cakes and sweets. People in the countryside believed: "Even when hungry, there's still Tet (Lunar New Year), and even when everything is gone, there's still harvest season."

No matter how delicious or sweet it was, they always tried to save it for the Tet holiday kitchen. My mother would always make several batches of rice flour cakes to offer to the ancestral altar, hoping for a new year as perfect and beautiful as the rice flour cakes themselves.

My mother would wander around the market, searching for the right kind of sticky, fragrant glutinous rice with large, plump grains. She would tend the fire for a while, until the rice in the pan turned a light yellow color and emitted a subtle aroma, then she would painstakingly pound the rice in a wooden mortar into a fine powder.

Then, finely grate the sugar, caramelize it until just right, and knead it thoroughly with the glutinous rice flour. When the dough is smooth enough to be formed into firm balls, adults will fill the holes of the intricately carved wooden molds with various patterns and shapes, pressing it down firmly to create the cakes. The wooden molds can produce square, round cakes with patterns like plum blossoms or chrysanthemums.

The molds were inverted onto a bamboo tray lined with newspaper, and a pestle was used to tap the bottom of the molds. The printed cakes were then removed under the wide, curious eyes of the children. On damp, sunless days, my mother would enclose a bamboo screen, place a pot of glowing charcoal in the center, and rest the bamboo tray on top to dry the cakes.

Dried rice cakes are slightly firm, with a crunchy bite that melts in your mouth, leaving a sweet, fragrant aroma of cooked glutinous rice mixed with sugar. Dried rice cakes can be eaten for up to six months without any preservatives.

During the Lunar New Year seasons in my hometown, the children would gather around the warm fire, watching the rice cakes dry, and they would be overjoyed whenever they saw a slight crack or a burnt spot. But when the cakes were done, my mother would count them and find that every batch was missing one or two cakes.

Besides glutinous rice flour cakes, some mothers grind up peeled mung beans, mix them with glutinous rice flour and brown sugar to make mung bean cakes. Mung bean cakes are fragrant, nutty, and slightly drier and firmer than glutinous rice flour cakes. Both types are quite delicious, depending on individual taste.

In the chilly weather, warming my hands by the fire, inhaling the intoxicating aroma of freshly baked rice cakes, I knew that Tet (Vietnamese New Year) was truly just around the corner.

Then, on New Year's Day, Mom brews a pot of vối leaf tea, and the whole family gathers together to enjoy tea and cakes, lighting up hopes for a peaceful year. Relatives and guests visiting the house are also invited to enjoy the rice cakes, a perfect way to strengthen bonds of friendship and affection.

That year, the molds created beautiful glutinous rice cakes, imprinting sweet memories of love in the hearts of children. Every Tet (Lunar New Year), those far from home vividly recall the scenes of the Tet celebrations of their childhood. Or like my sister, on the last day of winter in the city, preparing memories for a long, lingering journey of Tet...

Source: Ny An ( Quang Nam Newspaper)

Source: https://baophutho.vn/ben-bep-cho-banh-in-226467.htm