Remember my mother's cassava flour cake

(NLDO) - Among the vastness of millions of Vietnamese dishes for Tet, I still miss my mother's cake made from tapioca flour during Tet. It contains a lifetime of maternal love for her husband and children.

My hometown is Nga Tan commune, a brackish alluvial land of Nga Son district, Thanh Hoa province, where people mainly live by making sedge mats.

Unlike the communes of Nga Trung and Nga Hung that grow potatoes and rice, the people of Nga Tan have to "buy rice from the market and water from the river", "eat from meal to meal", "sell their faces to the ground and their backs to the sky" all year round, working hard all year round but still not having enough to eat, living and dying on sedge. Therefore, every year when Tet comes, earning a pound of fatty meat, stewing it with pickled onions and white rice is a "luxury" that only well-off families can afford.

Cakes served with honey on Tet holiday (illustrative photo)

To have a decent Tet, right from the 10th lunar month, my mother bought a bottle of molasses to keep in the bedroom, while my father walked all the way to Den market (a mountainous market in Thach Thanh district, Thanh Hoa province) to buy "deer antler" cassava to make cakes using molasses. On a cold winter night, the whole family sat around a pile of dried cassava. My sister peeled the skin, my father pounded the cassava with a pestle, my mother sifted the flour, and my youngest brother kept running around asking my mother "give me some flour to make cakes baked on a charcoal stove". My mother said: "To worship our ancestors, eating it first is a sin".

My mother told me that when my parents got married, they had nothing but a basket of earth and three bowls. Every year, when Tet came, my parents wove ropes to sell and bought potatoes. Despite their poverty and hunger, they were still able to raise seven "open-mouthed ships" to adulthood. During Tet, only wealthy families made sticky rice cakes, but for my family, making sticky rice cakes made from cassava flour was considered "classy".

My family gathered around the dinner table on Tet holiday.

The night of the thirtieth was pitch black. The cold of mid-winter was like cutting skin and flesh. Before pouring 3 cans of tapioca flour onto the tray, my mother lit the stove to boil water. The oil lamp was not bright enough in the small kitchen, so my mother scooped boiling water and poured it into the flour. My mother's hands kneaded each round cake and placed it around the rim of the tray. The pot of water had been boiling for a while. I held the lamp high, and my mother put each cake into the pot while saying: "Every Tet, our family makes cakes to worship our ancestors. After the worship, I will feed you."

Mom held the pot of cake with both hands, drained the water, then poured in the bottle of molasses, turned off the heat, and covered the pot. While waiting for the molasses to soak into the cake, Mom told me to wake up early on the first morning of Tet to prepare the offering and wear nice clothes to receive lucky money.

The molasses cakes were scooped into small bowls. Carrying the tray of cakes and placing it on the ancestral altar, lighting three incense sticks in the quiet of the 30th night, the mother prayed: "Tonight is the 30th of Tet. I pray to the nine directions of the sky, the ten directions of Buddha, grandparents, and ancestors to come and offer blessings for the homeowner to be healthy and prosperous...".

Tet is coming, my relatives and I chat together.

Mother was short and petite. Her worn-out cotton coat was not warm enough for the cold winter. Freckled, mother called: "Where are you children? Get up. Here is some delicious cake. Thang spread the mat, Dung got the tray, Chien got the bowl...".

The whole family sat together on an old mat on the ground. While eating, they talked about how to make cakes using cassava flour. Mother said: "Be full for three days during Tet, and hungry for three months in the summer. If there are many children in a house, even if it is not delicious, it will all be gone."

Taking a bite of the cake that was "full to the teeth" and soaked in sweet honey, I said: "Mom, next year we will still make this cake for Tet, okay?" Mom looked at me with tears in her eyes. I understood the happiness flooding her heart...

... It's been almost 40 years!

40 years have changed a lot, but the cake made with tapioca flour and honey by my mother's hand is still deeply imprinted in our subconscious forever and never fades.

The country has changed, the people of Nga Tan, my hometown, are no longer as hungry as during the subsidy period. Nowadays, few families eat cakes made with honey because they are afraid of getting fat, afraid of being fat, afraid of too much honey. However, it is still an indispensable flavor in my family's New Year's Eve tray. Because it has not only become a part of my family's beautiful memories but also a memory of my childhood, a time of poverty and hardship that has passed.

Preparing for the meal of cooking cakes and the tray of food for Tet holiday in my hometown

The Year of the Tiger is gradually coming to an end, making way for the Spring of the Cat. Among the vastness of millions of Vietnamese dishes for Tet, I still miss my mother's tapioca flour cake from the old Tet holiday. It contains all the maternal love of my mother for her husband and children. We grew up and matured from the tapioca flour cakes soaked in my mother's sweat since birth.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/ban-doc/cuoc-thi-viet-huong-vi-tet-nho-banh-dung-bot-san-cua-me-20230118155009364.htm