Unique fire-making and rice-cooking contest in suburban villages of Hanoi

February 17, 2024 | 18:33

TPO - Every year on the 8th day of Tet, hundreds of people from Thi Cam village (Xuan Phuong, Nam Tu Liem, Hanoi ) and tourists from all over gather at the village communal house to participate in the traditional fire-making and rice-cooking competition.

From early morning on the 8th day of the first lunar month, the people of Thi Cam village gathered at the communal house to prepare to participate in the village's traditional rice-cooking competition.

The village elders said that the rice cooking contest is held annually to commemorate the merits of the village's tutelary god - General Phan Tay Nhac. Legend has it that he was a general during the reign of the 18th Hung King. When stationed in Thi Cam village, he organized a rice cooking contest to recruit people who were good at logistics and cooking to serve the soldiers.

Every year, the competition will have 4 participating teams corresponding to 4 zodiac signs.

People at home share the work of preparing the fire and cooking rice.

Dry straw is prepared by the Organizing Committee and distributed to each team.

Team members will be assigned to braid straw. Dry straw is braided into an inner ring to cushion the rice pounding mortar and prevent rice from flying out.

The rice cooking competition consists of three main parts: making fire, running to fetch water and cooking rice. The running to fetch water will be undertaken by teenagers aged 12-14. The starting point is the village communal house and the contestants have to run a distance of about 1km to the East to get to the water point. To ensure the water source is safe, the Organizing Committee has prepared boiled water.

To make fire, the teams take two bamboo sticks, clamp the steel wool and cover them with bamboo sticks, hold both ends firmly and then two people pull continuously until the bamboo sticks are heated by friction, creating smoke and catching fire.

Once the fire is on, the water is brought to a boil before adding the rice.

After the rice is sieved and washed, it is put into the pot and waits for the water to boil.

Cooking rice with steel wool and firewood in small pots requires a lot of experience from the cook, so most of the contestants are older people.

The teams burned straw to get ash to bury the pot of rice until it cooked. In addition to burning the main piles of straw to bury the pot of rice, the teams also created many "fake" piles of ash next to them to "buy time" for the judges while they searched for the pot of rice.

Then the teams will hide them in piles of straw and coal to wait for them to ripen.

After a week of incense burning, the judges will search for the pot of cooked rice among the piles of straw and ash. If the team is clever at hiding, the incubation time will be extended and the rice will cook more evenly.

After finding 4 pots of rice, the judges will scoop 4 bowls to offer to the village guardian spirit. They will then observe and pinch the rice grains to score. The winning pot of rice must be the whitest, most sticky, and most delicious.

Lam Thuy Duong

Source: https://tienphong.vn/doc-dao-hoi-thi-keo-lua-thoi-com-lang-ven-do-ha-noi-post1612842.tpo