Unique rice cooking competition in Thi Cam village

Legend has it that during the reign of the 18th Hung King, when the country was invaded by foreign enemies, General Phan Tay Nhac was assigned by the Hung King to lead the army to fight the enemy. General Phan Tay Nhac received the king's order, received the full number of troops and urgently trained the soldiers day and night. The march was urgent, if the soldiers did not eat on time, it would be difficult to fight the enemy. He thought of a way to organize a cooking competition with prizes right in the army to quickly stabilize the logistics army that was good at cooking.

After defeating the enemy, General Phan Tay Nhac and his wife Hoa Dung returned to live in Thi Cam land, teaching villagers how to grow mulberry, raise silkworms, and weave cloth.

After his death, he was worshiped by the people as the village's tutelary god. To commemorate his merits, the people of Thi Cam village hold a festival on the 8th day of the first lunar month every year. The most unique of these is the rice-cooking competition, recreating the scene of the talented general's competition in the past.

The ancient Thi Cam village had 4 hamlets, each hamlet sent out a rice-cooking competition team. Before the competition, the teams prepared tools such as pestles, mortars, straw, pots, etc. Each team was given 1kg of rice by the Organizing Committee to cook rice. On March 9, 2021, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism issued Decision No. 827/QD-BVHTTDL announcing the Traditional Festival - Thi Cam Rice-Cooking Competition on the List of National Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Photos from the Thi Cam village rice cooking competition on the morning of February 17

The competition still maintains the old way of making fire by “pulling fire”. People take 2 bamboo sticks and clamp them to the steel wool, use 2 bamboo sticks to cover one piece above and one piece below, hold the 2 ends firmly, then 2 people pull the bamboo sticks to rub against the bamboo sticks many times to create friction. When they see smoke, they stop and blow on the fire to make it flare up, then use this fire to cook rice.

At exactly 11am, the competition was held with the fire pulling ritual taking place with prepared tinder and straw, old male bamboo with small slits drilled and a bamboo stick with handles on both ends. 4 people in the team will divide up to hold and pull, creating friction between the bamboo stick and the bamboo stem. The friction point will be hot enough to create embers and ignite the tinder, burning the dry straw.

According to the rules of the competition, the team that produces smoke and creates fire first will win this round. In addition, the teams sent a person holding a bronze pot to compete in running to the bank of the Nhue River to get water to cook rice at the same time as lighting the fire. However, for many years, to ensure safety, the water had to be taken from the river and boiled beforehand.

Meanwhile, the rice grains were pounded by the teams using wooden pestles and stone mortars. The time from pounding the rice to the end of the competition only lasted one hour, so all the competitions were carried out very quickly. The 10 team members had to coordinate very smoothly and skillfully.

The fire is lit and water is boiled waiting for the rice to be clean.

Meanwhile, the rice grains after being pounded by the teams with wooden pestles and stone mortars....

... will be given to the women who sift, pick out stones, and wash clean to remove chaff before cooking rice on the newly created fire of their teammates.

The round rice grains are carefully picked by members of the participating teams.

The rice is washed and cooked immediately afterwards.

After the rice boils, the teams usually cover it with straw ash for about 20 minutes to cook the rice evenly.

In addition to the piles of ash to bury the rice pots, the teams also burned many fake piles of ash without the rice pots inside.

This is to buy time for the judges so that your team's rice pot has more time to ferment.

After about half an hour, the judges walked around the yard, using bamboo sticks to poke through each pile of straw to find four pots of rice.

The first pots of rice were found in the ashes burned in the middle of the courtyard of Thi Cam communal house.

The rice is then brought to the village communal house to be judged publicly in front of the villagers and members of the participating teams.

Pots of fragrant, evenly-grained white rice from the four cooking teams at the Thi Cam Village Rice Cooking Competition.

'King of Plowing' in the Tich Dien Festival at the beginning of the year The Tich Dien Festival of Ha Nam is held annually and has become a beautiful feature in the community's cultural activities because this is a festival rich in humanity and profound agricultural promotion.

Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/doc-dao-hoi-thoi-com-thi-lang-thi-cam-2249950.html