Offerings for the Duanwu Festival: What fruits and foods need to be prepared?

Traditionally, the offering tray to ancestors on the occasion of the Duanwu Festival includes fruits such as lychee and plum; sticky rice wine, banh gio; in addition, depending on the culture of each region, there is also duck meat and sweet rice balls.

The Duanwu Festival takes place on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month every year and is also known as the Duanyang Festival and the most popular popular name is "Insect Killing Festival."

Besides the meaning of destroying pests that destroy crops, Vietnamese people also believe that this is an opportunity to eliminate diseases during the changing seasons.

This year, the Dragon Boat Festival will fall on Saturday, May 31, 2025.

On this Tet holiday, each family does not need to prepare a complicated savory meal, just a neat and simple fruit offering tray to offer to the ancestors as well as to pray for health for the whole family.

Traditionally, the offering tray to ancestors on the Doan Ngo Festival includes fruits such as lychee, plum; sticky rice wine, gio cakes (ash cake, ash cake)... In addition, the homeowner also needs to prepare incense, flowers, votive paper and depending on the culture and customs of each region, the offering tray also includes duck meat and sweet rice balls.

Northern Vietnamese Tet Doan Ngo offerings

Fresh flowers

Vietnam has many beautiful flowers, but on the occasion of the Duanwu Festival, the most popular flower to display on the altar is the lotus. The lotus has a pure beauty, both elegant and shy.

There are also many other types of flowers displayed on the offering tray such as jasmine, areca flowers, red peonies...

Fruit

Fruits such as lychees and plums are sold a lot during the Doan Ngo Festival. (Photo: Hoang Hieu/VNA)

The two types of fruit that often appear on the Doan Ngo festival tray in the North are plum and lychee. The reason is that in May, these two types of fruit are in season and are sold a lot, so people often choose to buy them to display and burn incense.

When offering and eating these fruits, people hope that the crops will be good, diseases will be destroyed, and the fruits will flourish.

Rice wine

Sticky rice wine is an indispensable dish on the Duanwu Festival. (Source: VNA)

Sticky rice wine is also a special dish on this day. The ancients believed that sticky rice wine would help stimulate the taste buds, aid digestion, and eliminate disease-causing microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, or parasites in the body.

Especially in the North, the dish of sticky rice wine with yellow flowers is not available everywhere and is as delicious as in the North, so this is a must-have dish on the offering tray in the North. In addition, in some places, there is also sticky rice wine with purple flowers.

Ash cake

Ash cakes are sold a lot during the Doan Ngo Festival. (Photo: Hoang Hieu/VNA)

Ash cake (also known as gio cake) is a type of cake made from sticky rice soaked in ash water, wrapped in banana leaves. This type of cake is easy to eat, easy to digest, and tastes delicious when eaten with sugar or honey. According to our ancestors, sticky rice when boiled in leaves will absorb the properties of herbs, helping to cool down and eliminate diseases in the body.

To increase the aesthetics of the Doan Ngo Festival offering tray, many families also add colorful cakes such as xu xe cake and green rice cake.

Offering tray for the Central region's Doan Ngo Festival

In addition to the offerings that must be present in the North, the Central region's offering tray has a number of other items such as:

Rice wine

Rice wine in the Central region is fermented in a traditional way, in the form of small square pieces, soft inside and out.

Duck meat

The reason why people in the Central region prefer duck meat is because people believe that duck meat has the effect of cooling the body, replenishing blood and helping digestion. In addition, this is also the time when duck meat is the most delicious and fattening.

Millet tea

Although not popular in all Central provinces, millet sweet soup is very popular and appears on the offering tray of the Doan Ngo festival in Quang Nam . Millet sweet soup is cooked with millet seeds until soft, very sweet and fragrant when eaten.

Southern Tet Doan Ngo offerings

In addition to the familiar dishes, the Southern Tet Doan Ngo offering tray also has many other dishes such as:

Rice wine

Still rice wine, but in the South, rice wine is rolled into round balls and sugar water is added, eaten like sticky rice and sweet soup in the North.

Ba Trang sticky rice cake

This dish is similar to banh tro but bigger, made from sticky rice stuffed with filling, then boiled or steamed. Banh ú Bá Trạng can be wrapped in lotus leaves, banana leaves,... and each type of leaf will give the cake a different flavor.

Sweet rice balls

Floating rice balls

In the South, sweet rice balls are large, round balls made from white sticky rice flour with a rich green bean filling. In the South, sweet rice balls are eaten with sugar water and coconut milk, which is believed to have good insect-killing properties./.

(Vietnam+)

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/mam-cung-tet-doan-ngo-can-chuan-bi-nhung-trai-cay-thuc-pham-nao-post1040229.vnp