Thu Hà

Households across the country are preparing fruits, cakes and tasty dishes to celebrate one of the most important traditional festivals, locally known as Tết Đoan Ngọ or the pest-killing festival, which falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month (May 31).

According to folk legend, after a bumper crop, farmers were facing an agricultural disaster as an infestation of worms were eating away at their trees and crops. An elderly man named Đôi Truân appeared and guided villagers to set up an altar to worship the heaven and the earth, laden with ash cakes and fruits and then asked them to head outdoors to do exercises in the front of their house.

Suddenly and remarkably, all pests and worms had been killed. Since that day, every fifth day of the fifth lunar month annually, locals carry this ceremony to kill the pests to protect their crops and their health, said Cultural Expert Trần Ngọc.

“The festival reflects a deep significance for Vietnamese lives. It is a time for family members to get together to worship their ancestors, making wishes for good health and safety. They often offered fermented glutinous rice, ash cakes, the first fruits of the season on their altar and wash in coriander leaves to purify their body. The worshiping often has to be carried early that day to be ready to welcome active energy from the sun,” he said.

In addition to being popular in Việt Nam, the festival is also being held in China, South Korea and Japan, he added.

According to folk traditions, eating fermented glutinous rice and ash cake in the early morning also helps to kill worms and parasites inside the body.

Housewife Đinh Thanh Hiền in the northern province of Quảng Ninh said: “We believe that the ash cake, which is made from soaking sticky rice in ash water, wrapped in banana leaves and boiled, brings coolness and offers a lovely fragrant flavour, while fermented glutinous rice with its sweet, hot and fiery tastes creates a perfect combination bringing special culinary characteristics to the Đoan Ngọ Festival.”

Hiền said the first fruits of the season such as plum, mango, lychee and rambutan are believed to bring good luck and are portents for people's good health.

Bathing in coriander leaves is considered an effective way to chase away evil spirits and purify the body to welcome the festival, added Hiền.

Apart from fermented glutinous rice, ash cakes and the first fruits, locals in the central region often cook duck meat as an indispensable dish among others at Đoan Ngọ Festival tray. According to folklore, the duck meat, with its coolness, helps to release heat, bringing cool to the body during the often severe heat in the fifth lunar month.

Hiền said favourite dishes made from duck include roasted duck, duck porridge, noodle soup with duck meat and duck salad.

In addition, Huế people often cook millet sweet porridge, or chè kê, a special dish for the Đoan Ngọ Festival. The porridge is cooked with sugar and the millet, which has its light sweet and fragrant tastes and is extra enjoyable when eaten with sesame rice crackers.

Meanwhile, housewives in the South often cook their traditional rice balls sweet porridge, locally known as chè trôi nước, which is made of glutinous rice filled with mung bean paste, soaked in a sweet clear or brown syrup made of water, sugar and grated ginger root, as one of main dishes at Đoan Ngọ Festival. 

“The dish, has a sweet flavour, is warm and fragrant from the ginger and is a symbol of unification and family connections,” Hiền said.

Kite flying and other entertainments are also often held by locals over many areas in Red River Delta during the festival to express their desire and hope for a prosperous and well-lived life. — VNS