Quang Nam Chung Cake Goes to America for Tet

"Every year, at the end of autumn, when the leaves on the streets fall a lot and there are silver clouds in the sky...", the mothers and sisters in Vietnamese villages are bustling about planning rice - beans - leaves - strings to wrap Chung cakes.

Workers wrapping banh chung at Ba Ba Hoi Cooperative prepare for orders to the US - Photo: T. THUY

Of course, this is still a long way from Lunar New Year's Eve, but these are the Chung cakes that will celebrate Tet on the other side of the globe - America. This year, along with the familiar Chung cakes from craft villages in Hai Phong and Dong Nai, the Chung cakes from Tien Phuoc (Quang Nam) with their unique hometown characteristics have been exported for the first time, entering Vietnamese supermarkets in the US through official channels.

Packed with the taste of home

The enterprise licensed to officially export 10 tons of banh chung to the US is Ba Ba Hoi Cooperative. Before banh chung, the cooperative also officially exported mackerel to Vietnamese supermarkets in the US and received great satisfaction from customers.

Ms. Huynh Thi Thu Thuy, owner of the Ba Ba Hoi brand, said that making banh chung, Quang noodles, and other items for sale during Tet has been a family tradition for many generations. Ms. Pham Thi Hoi, her mother, is a famous baker in Tam Ky. Every Tet and major holidays, people from Quang Nam province everywhere call to order Ms. Hoi to wrap banh chung and cook Quang noodles.

Ba Ba Hoi's banh chung became an official export product to the US thanks to the opportunity to connect production facilities of specialty and typical handicrafts of Quang Nam province a few years ago.

During a working session with a partner in Ho Chi Minh City, Ms. Thuy met a business specializing in distributing regional specialties in Vietnam for sale in the US.

After only a few months, the contract in principle for the batch of Quang Banh Chung was signed. The related procedures were promoted quickly and professionally.

Ms. Thuy said that to receive the nod from the partner, in addition to meeting strict standards on quality, processing procedures, and raw materials, her facility also had to prove the difference of Quang banh chung.

In a negotiation content when placing an order that the partner provided, the distributor asked the Banh Chung Ba Hoi manufacturer to prove "the unique, strange and exclusive characteristics of a popular item like Banh Chung".

Her answer: "Ba Ba Hoi's Quang Nam Chung Cake is a delicate combination of ingredients that are typical of the Quang Nam region. The softness of sticky rice combined with the fatty, nutty taste of green beans, the light aroma and spiciness of pepper create an interesting dish for the diners.

The product is processed with a traditional recipe to create the typical flavor of the land, familiar in the memories of Quang people.

Without meat according to strict US import requirements, vegetarian green banh chung still retains its traditional flavor after a long period of research and careful selection of Quang Nam's specialty ingredients. The cake is professionally and beautifully packaged as a precious Tet gift."

The best cake to travel far is the cake to eat.

"Crossing the ocean to bring the flavors of Quang Nam to America, it must be the best cake. The sticky rice must be fragrant, soft, sweet, every peppercorn, spice, cake filling, and dong leaves and strings must be perfect," Ms. Thuy affirmed.

After a long time searching for good sources of sticky rice, the Bau sticky rice variety - a rare type of sticky rice that only achieves productivity and quality when grown for exactly six months on Tam My Tay land (Nui Thanh district, Quang Nam) was targeted.

Ba Ba Hoi Cooperative goes to the fields to order at high prices but with strict organic processes.

The harvested sticky rice is sun-dried, hulled, and bran-removed carefully before being brought to the factory, soaked, and fermented to start wrapping the cakes.

To make the cake fragrant and fresh, the source of dong leaves for wrapping is also ordered from people in the foothills of Ngoc Linh mountain in Bac Tra My and Nam Tra My to go into the forest to pick.

The leaves used to wrap the cake must be perfectly "ripe", with fresh, crispy veins, even color, no yellowing, no worms... In addition, young fresh giang (a type of bamboo) tubes are also selected to be torn into thin strands to make the string to wrap the cake.

Ms. Thuy also said that she went to Tien Phuoc pepper garden to choose the best peppercorns to combine with green beans to make the cake filling. The green beans must also be organic, grown according to clean agricultural processes, with traceable origins.

In early October, before the contractual deadline for shipment, dozens of workers in strict protective gear came to the processing plant of Ba Ba Hoi Cooperative to start wrapping the cakes.

Although Mrs. Hoi is over 70 years old, she always stands close to the workers to guide each step with her decades of experience in wrapping cakes. From how much mung bean and pepper to put in the cake, how to tie the wrapping string... everything is done meticulously until a square cake is completed and put on the steamer.

Holding the fragrant cakes that had just come out of the oven, Mrs. Thuy recalled the characteristics of her Quang Nam banh chung: the sticky taste is more blended, the cake is sweet and moist, the mung bean filling is sweet and fragrant with Tien Phuoc pepper.

"The sticky rice used to make the cake is mixed with dried pandan leaves, and the filling is marinated with the right amount of spices. After cooking, the sticky rice has a beautiful green color, covering the soft, fragrant mung bean filling inside.

The cake is wrapped in a plastic bag, vacuum-sealed, sterile and can be preserved for many months. Vietnamese tradition is that before eating the cake, it will be placed on the Tet offering tray to remember the origin, burn incense for ancestors, and banh chung is also a gift to wish for a happy new year.

So we tried to design a beautiful box...", Mrs. Thuy continued enthusiastically. Listening to her daughter introduce it to the guests, Mrs. Ba Hoi was also very pleased with the new appearance of her family's heirloom cake.

People from Quang Nam far away will feel less homesick this Tet.

Will continue to bring banh chung to the US

Ms. Thuy with beautiful boxes of banh chung, preparing to export to the US for Tet sale - Photo: BD

To meet export standards and absolute safety, Ba Ba Hoi Cooperative had to invest in production lines, technology and strict quality processes according to US FDA standards. Director of LNS Vietnam Import-Export Company (the unit that signed the contract to bring Ba Ba Hoi Chung cakes to the US), Mr. Ho Hung, said that the demand for enjoying dishes with the taste of home among the Vietnamese community is very large. "Vietnamese people in the US still have to go to work and school on Vietnam's Lunar New Year (California recognizes Lunar New Year as a holiday), so they don't have much time to gather to cook Chung cakes like in Vietnam. From this need, we want to bring Chung cakes, packaged in beautiful, convenient gift boxes from Vietnam to the US so that Vietnamese people can enjoy the full taste of their homeland," Mr. Hung said. According to Mr. Ho Hung, the 10-ton shipment of Ba Ba Hoi Chung cakes to the US this Tet is an official shipment of Chung cakes. If everything goes well, LSN will continue to place orders every Tet season. A batch of 32,000 banh chung, wrapped in green dong leaves, filled with mung beans, glutinous rice and spicy pepper from Tien Phuoc, was packed and shipped on October 24. According to plan, from mid-December, the bags of banh chung were on the shelves of Vietnamese supermarkets in the United States.

Tuoitre.vn

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