On February 11 (January 14, At Ty year), at Con Son pagoda yard, Con Son - Kiep Bac special national relic site (Chi Linh city), the Organizing Committee of Con Son - Kiep Bac Spring Festival in Hai Duong province in 2025 organized a contest to wrap Chung cake and pound Giay cake.
This is one of the unique traditional cultural activities of the Con Son - Kiep Bac Spring Festival and has been maintained for many years.
According to information from the Organizing Committee, there are 12 teams participating in the contest, with more than 100 artisans living in 12 districts, towns and cities in Hai Duong province. The contest has 2 parts, which are the Chung cake wrapping contest with 12 teams wrapping Chuong cakes, and the Giay cake pounding contest with 6 teams participating.
The organizers presented souvenir flags to the delegations participating in the contest. Photo: Nguyen Viet.
Notably, among the more than 100 artisans, many are farmers living in many villages of 12 localities in the province who "transformed" into them. They brought their talents and ingenuity to the festival and competed to see who could wrap Chung cake and pound Giay cake faster, more beautifully, and more deliciously.
The atmosphere of the competition was bustling, with many people in the province and tourists from all over coming to cheer.
According to the Organizing Committee's regulations, for the banh chung wrapping competition, each team will send 5 people to participate. The team members will wear traditional festival costumes.
Wide-flower and Royal Poinciana art performance. Photo: Nguyen Viet.
The ingredients for wrapping the cake include sticky rice, not mixed with regular rice, large, round, even grains, no broken grains, no black tips; the rice is soaked thoroughly. The prescribed weight after being soaked thoroughly and drained is 6.8 kg. 1.5 kg of peeled and steamed green beans. 0.8 kg of pork, cut into pieces. In addition, there are pepper, onions, salt, spices; dong leaves for wrapping the cake, and large, thinly split giang strips. The competing teams wrap the cake by hand, without using molds.
After the opening ceremony, the teams went to the location where the materials were arranged to start the competition. The teams gathered the necessary materials and tools at the location where the lots were drawn. After finishing the preparations, the contestants stood in a straight line, 2 meters away from the location where the materials were gathered. When the referee gave the signal and started the timer, the teams quickly started performing the competition.
Leaders of the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Deputy Head of the Festival Organizing Committee beat the drum to open the competition. Photo: Nguyen Viet.
According to Dan Viet reporters, the members of the 12 teams are all skillful, agile and have many years of experience in wrapping banh chung, so the steps to wrap banh chung are carried out smoothly and quickly.
According to the Organizing Committee's regulations, each team will wrap 10 banh chung, including 5 salty banh chung with mung bean and pork filling, and 5 vegetarian banh chung with mung bean filling. The competition time is no more than 15 minutes, after this time, the team will be disqualified and will not be scored.
Head of the contest organizing committee presented the opening speech. Photo: Nguyen Viet.
Mr. Nguyen Van Viet, 61 years old, an artisan of Ninh Giang district team said: "I come from the hometown of Ninh Giang specialty sticky rice cake. For many years, I have participated in the Ninh Giang district team to attend the Con Son Kiep Bac spring festival to compete in wrapping banh chung. This is an opportunity for us to exchange with artisans from other localities in the province."
According to the observation of Dan Viet reporter, each team assigned each person to wrap salty banh chung separately and another person to wrap vegetarian banh chung separately and had a sign for the Organizing Committee to know, so the banh chung was wrapped very quickly by the teams. With the experience of the artisans, the Hai Duong City team quickly completed 10 banh chung and brought them to the Organizing Committee's booth and rang the gong to announce the completion of the competition. The other teams also quickly wrapped and completed the competition one by one. The teams finished the competition before the time specified by the Organizing Committee.
Artists perform the Chung cake wrapping competition. Photo: Nguyen Viet.
In the afternoon, 6 teams participated in the rice cake pounding competition including: Hai Duong City, Chi Linh City, Kinh Mon Town, Cam Giang District, Tu Ky District, Nam Sach District. Each team sent 6 people to participate in the competition.
For the materials for the rice cake pounding competition, each team will pound 6.8 kg of sticky rice; at the same time, they must prepare a stove, a sticky rice cooker, and a set of pestles.
The rules for this competition are that each team must make sticky rice. After making the sticky rice, they will take it to a location to pound it and then mold it into 5 cakes. The cakes will have the words "Phuc" or "Loc" or "Tho" in red in Han Nom characters. The cakes must have a distinctive aroma, be delicious, and not have undercooked rice. The total time for pounding sticky rice cakes is 50 minutes for each team.
With many years of experience, the teams quickly completed the Chung cake wrapping competition. Photo: Nguyen Viet.
With many years of experience, the artisans from the famous rice cake production area of An Lac ward, representing Chi Linh city, quickly completed the competition in 12 minutes. The other teams then quickly completed the competition, finishing before the time specified by the Organizing Committee.
Mr. Cao Van Thai, Chairman of the Farmers' Association of An Lac Ward, in charge of the Banh Giay pounding team of Chi Linh City, said: "Last year, we won first prize in both Banh Chung wrapping and Banh Giay pounding events. This year, Chi Linh strives to maintain our achievement of winning first prize in both events last year."
After the teams complete their competition, tomorrow, February 12, the banh chung and banh giay products will be scored, awarded, and displayed on trays to be offered to pagodas and temples in the Con Son Kiep Bac relic site to worship Buddha and the saints and famous people worshiped at the relics.
Below are photos of the Banh Chung and Banh Giay wrapping contest, taken by Dan Viet reporters:
After wrapping the cakes, the teams brought the trays of cakes back to the Organizing Committee's table and rang the gong to announce the completion of the competition. Photo: Nguyen Viet.
The teams boiled the cakes for 5 hours according to the regulations of the Organizing Committee. Photo: Nguyen Viet.
Pot of boiling banh chung on fire. Photo: Nguyen Viet.
After the gong sounded to start, the teams performed the rice cake pounding competition in the afternoon of the same day. Photo: Nguyen Viet.
Teams make sticky rice. Photo: Nguyen Viet.
Sticky rice water, teams put sticky rice into the pot to steam. Photo: Nguyen Viet.
After finishing steaming the sticky rice, the teams brought the sticky rice back to the designated place to pound the rice cakes. Photo: Nguyen Viet.
Making the rice cake. Photo: Nguyen Viet.
Artisans making rice cakes. Photo: Nguyen Viet.
Bring the cake back to the designated table to finish the competition. Photo: Nguyen Viet.
Source: https://danviet.vn/day-la-2-loai-banh-ngon-ra-tet-o-noi-nay-cua-hai-duong-dan-thi-goi-luoc-boc-hoi-thom-khap-rung-20250211132747649.htm
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