The Tale of Bánh Chưng

It is that time of the year again. In a few weeks, we Vietnamese will celebrate the famous holiday of all: Tết. Who can forget all the wonderful things that come with Tết: the flower market on Nguyễn Huệ Street, the cracking sound of fire crackers, new clothes, New Year money - tiền lì xì, and bánh chưng -square rice cake. All my life, I don’t know why we eat bánh chưng. It is very plain. Once you eat one piece, you don’t want to eat another piece until you die. If it was good, we would be eating it all year round. Every Vietnamese restaurant would have bánh chưng on the menu. Instead of a Phở Hòa on a corner of every block in Santa Ana, people will see Bánh Chưng Hòa. Bánh chưng is not that good. When you go out on a date, you would ask your date if he –or she- would like to go eat phở; you would not ask if he –or she- would like to go eat bánh chưng!

It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that bánh chưng’s taste is not that great. Yet do you know that a son of King Hùng Vương VI inherited the throne from his father just because this son offered this “best” food to him? Here is the tale of bánh chưng:

A long, long time ago –of course longer than my birth-, King Hùng Vương VI of the Hồng Bàng Dynasty decided to relinquish his throne after defeating the Chinese invaders. He thought he was too old, it was time for him to start playing golf with his golf buddies. The king had fathered twenty two sons (remember, there were no birth control pills back then). They were all very attractive, like Prince Charles of England. Choosing a successor was a very difficult task, but he finally came up with a plan. One day, he sent subpoenas to all his sons and said to them: “I want to retire early to have enough time to enjoy my 401K plan. I want to anoint one of you but I don’t know which one has the ability and wisdom to lead the country. Therefore, I give you this test: Go to all the corners of the earth, search for all wonderful delicacies. Whoever can prepare the best dish to satisfy my taste will not only be the next king of Viet Nam, but might make millions of piasters, no, trillions of piasters because millions of piasters are not even enough to buy a hamburger, selling his story to the producer of the “Survivor” series on CBS”.

Upon hearing the King’s instruction, the children set out on their own journey to every corner of the kingdom to find the most exotic, unusual, and far-fetched foods to present to the King, from Ngã Ba Chú Ía to Xa Lộ Biên Hòa, to Ngã Năm Chuồng Chó.... However, there was one young prince who stayed back at the palace. His name was Tiết Liêu, and he was fifteen years old. He was too young to have riding permit to ride horses; therefore he had to stay home. Tiết Liêu was at a loss. There was no one to advise him about where to search for foreign delicacies. He was sad and worried, not knowing what to do.

One night, in his sleep, a wise man with gray hair appeared in his dream. The old man said: “I have been sent to help you to please your father. Listen closely: Man cannot live without rice. (And all my life I thought that man cannot live without sex!). Rice is our main food. Go to Chinese Supermarket to buy glutinous rice -gạo nếp-, twenty pounds of lean pork, and five bags of banana leaves. Make sure to buy the ones imported from the Philippines, their banana leaves are better than ours, and five bags of beans. Be careful when choosing beans: You want to buy Chinese beans, not Mexican beans because you don’t want to bring bad odor to your father’s palace. Once you have all the ingredients, you are going to make a rice cake, and this is how: Cook the beans and set them aside. Soak the rice and pour it into a square mold covered with banana leaves. Stuff the middle with pieces of pork and cooked beans. Pour rice on top again, then close the banana leaves. Bind it with bamboo strip and cook it for an entire day. This is called “bánh chưng”. “Chưng” means nothing, I don’t know what to call it so I just made it up. “Bánh chưng” symbolizes the earth, as opposed to “bánh dầy”, which symbolizes the sky” (For people who don’t know, “bánh dầy” was the first Vietnamese invention of silicone breast implant).

The old man vanished and the prince woke up. He was very happy and set out to do exactly what he was told in the dream.

The time now came and King Hùng Vương VI summoned his sons again to find out what kind of food they prepared for him. After tasting each and every dish of Tiết Liêu’s brothers, the King shook his head in disappointment. It was one vegetable dish after another : Canh rau muống, canh mồng tơi, canh cải bắp, rau muống luộc, rau muống xào, rau muống ăn sống.... The king was really having a craving for a piece of meat and then came this last dish from Tiết Liêu: bánh chưng. He took a bite. The piece of pork melted in his mouth and slowly penetrated through all the sensing cells in his brain. He was elated! Even rat meat was good for him at this moment after all these vegetable dishes, let alone pork! He happily declared that “bánh chưng” was the best food he ever tasted, and announced to all people that Tiết Liêu would be the next King of Viet Nam.”

And that is how the story ended. I feel sorry for King Hùng Vương VI. His decision might have been different if there was a Chinese seafood restaurant in Vietnam at that time. Or a Pizza Hut, or a McDonald’s.....

Now, let me go check my wife’s bánh dầy. It is not what you guys are all thinking, shame on you! She just bought some last night.

Nguyễn Tài Ngọc