Viet Nam News
Banh Com – A legendary symbol of Ha Noi cuisine
By Ho Hoang
For most Hanoians, com (green sticky rice) is one of the capital’s most important symbols of gastronomy and elegance, and so is banh com (sweet cake made of green sticky rice and green beans).
Living in the capital without savouring banh com would be a major shortcoming of your Ha Noi experience. I’ll tell you why.
Banh com’s symbolic reputation comes from where and when it originated and was first created in 1865 by the ancestors of the Nguyen Duy family.
With the brand name Nguyen Ninh, these first green sticky rice cakes were also created to honour its motherland – Yen Ninh Village which used to be famous for the finest green rice cakes.
Green sticky rice, the cake’s key ingredient, used to be imported from Vong Village, the homeland of harvesting green sticky rice in the heart of every Hanoian.
Nowadays, to meet the requirement of modern producing system and to satisfy the increasing amount of the customers, the Nguyen Ninh store imports green rice from other localities like Thai Binh Province.
Vong Village today belongs to Dich Vong Ward, Cau Giay District, Ha Noi. Green sticky rice from the village has a signature colour, flexibility and flavour which no other locality can compete with.
“Why among the vastness of beautiful Viet Nam, where paddy fields stretch to the end of the horizon, the best green sticky rice can only come from Vong Village?”, famous author Vu Bang, a Vietnamese gastronome, once wrote in his influential book The delicious dishes of Ha Noi.
Although the place isn’t the ingredient distributor for Nguyen Ninh anymore, the village still makes and sells green rice thanks to its reputation.
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| Green delights: A customer buys banh com at Nguyen Ninh Store at 11 Hang Than Street in Ha Noi. |
Meticulous
The making of banh com can be expressed in two words: meticulous and elegant - just like the place it originated in. From ingredient selection to packing, everything has to be perfect to create the finest cake and to preserve 153 years of reputation.
Let’s start with the green rice. Different from young green sticky rice, banh com is formed by an old kind of rice imported from Thai Binh. This means the rice is cut right as soon as the seeds are ripe green, because the younger rice when fried with sugar will melt completely and can’t be used to make a crust. Maybe that’s the reason why we can enjoy banh com cake year around while the best com only arrives during the early harvesting seasons from April to May.
“Our great grandmother Truong Ai came up with a historic idea of making the first banh com in Viet Nam in 1865, and the rest is history,” said Nguyen Thi Hiep, one of eight great grandchildren of Truong Ai who have inherited the family trade.
After processing, the harvested green sticky rice is put into pots and covered tightly. Green beans for making the paste have to be carefully selected from a mountainous area in Son La Province to guarantee the best quality.
By adding puree additives like lotus jam and grated coconut, the com is marinated in a special way and is then stir-fried on a hot pan with caster-sugar for about two hours until the seeds are condensed but still with the signature green colour. Before everything is set, a little bit of distilled grapefruit water can increase the flavor of a delicious banh com.
“In every stage of making the cake, stir-frying is the most important. Banh com will become too soft or too over - cooked if something goes wrong with the fire power adjustment or the skill of the chef, so this stage is extremely decisive. After all the hard work, a perfect com cake with tasty green sticky rice layer on the outside, and fresh yellow green bean paste alongside white grated coconut from the inside which are perfectly blended with each other to create a flavourful masterpiece is ready to serve the most picky diners”, said Nguyen Thi Hong Van, also another member of the Nguyen Duy family.
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| Quintessence of Ha Noi: A woman packs her banh com. |
Perhaps this is why after 153 years, Nguyen Ninh’s banh com is still the best as every single secret recipe and technique is only known by members of the Nguyen Duy family.
“Ha Noi’s com cake has its unique flavor that you would never be able to find anywhere. Every time I visit this capital, I often buy the cake at Nguyen Ninh store as a lovely gift for my family members and friends in HCM City”, said Ho Nguyen Ngoc, a young Saigonese who love the square shaped cake.
“Tasting banh com is like savoring every single throwback memory of childhood. With the sweet and flexible green layer reminds you of peaceful paddy fields, of labour beauty in the hard old days,” 53 year old Nguyen Van Tam, a Hanoian his whole life, saidy about those good old days.
Banh com is a symbol of Ha Noi, not only because of its origins, but also due to its influence on the culture and lifestyle of Hanoians.
None expressed this better than author Vu Bang, a writer whose literary works are as inspirational as his love for the capital.
“After rewinding every piece of childhood memory, I realise that Tet holiday isn’t what I miss the most, also not for those happy days and definitely not for any of those old love stories that have passed by, but some randomly mornings before school, when my mother used to prepare a small set of Vong Village green sticky rice for me as breakfast whenever autumn arrives. That was it, but somehow, don’t know why, it always takes tears from my eyes whenever thinking about it,” Vu Bang wrote, describing the childhood of many Hanoians.
Banh com is a source of great pride for Hanoians and Vietnamese, as a dish that represents love, childhood, origins, tradition and the elegance of a city. —VNS