The Taste of Vietnam Anonymous

His skinny figure stoops and meticulously cleans and wipes each green Dong leaf, then puts it into an small pile. Afterwards, he takes out a basket of peas and grinds them till they are as fine as wheat flour. Each of his movement is quick but careful, gentle and skillful. He is like a competent artist performing his show…

When I was small, I usually spent my own Tet holiday in my homeland - Thai Binh province- at a small village typical of green paddy fields, flute kites, strolling buffalos, adventurous cricket-finding afternoons and never-ending mellifluent lullabies.

The Tet at hometown was simple, but it was interesting to a six year old girl like me. Delicious jam, decorative multi-colored lanterns or lucky money could not convince me to spend my Tet in the big city. Instead, I was passionately fond of the Chung cake-making process mastered by my grandpa. He and I made cakes the same way every year, but every year I learned more about life as we did so.

Wrapping was the most exciting part of cake-making to me. Grandpa said that Chung cake needed all the ingredients: green peas, pork, sticky rice, dong leaves, onions, peppercorn and some other spices, and that the lack of one of these ingredients would change the original...