Cooc Mo Rice Cakes

At one month old, the baby has not eaten a single grain of rice. The baby only nurses, sleeps deeply, then wails to be held.

In the Trùng Khánh area of Cao Bằng, before the baby turns one month old, the women sit down to wrap sticky rice cakes. They wrap cake after cake, and must count carefully so there are exactly enough.

It is hard to see, at first, who all these cakes are for, when the baby cannot yet taste a single grain of sticky rice. In some places, the same pointed cake is a reward after the harvest. A cake for a baby too young to eat, and a cake for a good child: it is fair to wonder whether the two are linked.

The day a baby turns one month old has a name of its own: khai bươn. In Cao Bằng, every Tày child goes through this ceremony on reaching one month. The Tày and the Nùng are two peoples of northern Vietnam with closely related languages and similar cultures. From that day, the baby is accepted into the family and the clan. In the Trùng Khánh area, the ceremony cannot happen without bánh coóc mò, small sticky rice cakes wrapped in leaves.

Before the ceremony, the women soak sticky rice and wash it until it is perfectly clean. They tear banana leaves into strips about as wide as three fingers. One woman rolls a strip into a small funnel, pours in the rice, and ties it shut. The freshly wrapped cake has a sharp, pointed tip, like the horn of an ox. Its name says exactly that. In Tày, the word for horn is coóc, and the word for ox is mò. Coóc mò, ox horn. In Vietnamese, the cake is also called bánh sừng bò, the ox horn cake, which means the same as the Tày name.

On the day of the ceremony, relatives arrive one after another to celebrate. One brings a young hen, another fragrant sticky rice. One brings a bamboo hammock, another a brocade baby carrier. The baby's grandmother on the mother's side lays the baby in the cradle and sings a lullaby. Relatives from the father's side and the mother's side sing lullabies too, one song following another around the cradle.

When the guests leave, the hosts give each of them three cakes as a gift. That is why the cakes must match the number of guests exactly. Too many would be a waste. Too few, and a relative going home without cakes would be a lapse in courtesy. The cakes on that one-month day are not for the baby to eat. They go home with the guests.

The grandmother ties the baby onto her back with a length of brocade, takes a bag of bánh coóc mò, and walks out to the lane. She sells one or two cakes to everyone she meets. Each person pulls out money to pay her. Money goes one way, cakes the other. But it is only a pretend sale, following an old custom.

People call this sale "selling the small to buy the big." No one is selling the baby. She sells only a few cakes, and what she hopes to buy is good fortune for her grandchild. A thầy Tào is the master of rites whom families invite to perform the ceremony and name the baby on the one-month day. One thầy Tào in Trùng Khánh puts it even more simply: sell the foolishness, buy the luck.

An older person, well educated and respected by the whole village, also holds an umbrella over the baby and takes the child out to the road. Books and notebooks come along too, a sign of the day the child will go to school. After this outing, the baby belongs to the village as well.

The cake that will one day reward a good child after the harvest also begins with fine sticky rice grown on the hillside fields. A woman washes the rice in stream water, again and again, until the water runs clear. Then she soaks it for a few hours to soften the grains. She pounds raw peanuts fine, mixes them evenly into the rice, and adds a pinch of salt.

The ties for the cakes are split from giang canes or from mỡ trees, very thin and very even. Each tie must be both soft and strong, so that it holds without tearing the leaf.

She rolls lá dong or banana leaves into a funnel in the same way. She pours in the rice, pats it gently to pack it firm, folds the leaf edges down, and ties it.

The old people still say that tying is the most important step. If the ties are too loose, water seeps in and the cake turns mushy. If they are too tight, the rice cannot swell and the cake loses its soft chew. Not too loose, not too tight, just right in the hand.

When the wrapping is done, she sets the cakes in cold water. At first, tiny bubbles keep rising to the surface. She waits until the water is completely still.

Then she strings the cakes in pairs and small bunches, and boils them for about two hours.

Once cooked, the cakes take on the pale green of the leaves. Unwrapped, the rice is soft and chewy, fragrant with hill rice and with peanuts. Some people eat them just as they are. Others dip them in honey, in sugarcane syrup, or in a little sugar.

The Tày make these cakes, and so do the Nùng. They are made in Cao Bằng and in Lạng Sơn. They are made in Thái Nguyên as well. They are even made as far away as Bình Liêu, in Quảng Ninh. Each place has its own way. Some leave them plain, some add a filling, and some mix black beans or mung beans into the rice. In Bình Liêu, people often wrap plain cakes for Tết, the Lunar New Year festival in Vietnam. That way the cakes keep longer. They tie them into strings before boiling. To the people there, each string of cakes is like a family gathered close together.

By old custom, the Tày usually make bánh coóc mò for a baby's one-month day or first birthday, whatever the season. Every baby turns one in time.

In Thái Nguyên, at the first birthday ceremony, the adults only place a cake in the baby's tiny hand. With it comes a wish: eat well and grow fast, be good, be healthy. At just one year old, the wish already holds the word good.

At the market fairs, all year round, the cakes are laid out for sale in bunches and in pairs. Grandmothers and mothers often buy some as treats for their children and the little ones. In Võ Nhai, over in Thái Nguyên, the cakes have long been a gift for small children. Children get them on holidays and at Tết.

After each harvest, in some places, people wrap bánh coóc mò again to celebrate the new rice. These cakes also reward good children, the ones who help at home and in the fields.

In Trùng Khánh, on the day the baby turns one month old, the grandmother sells cakes out in the lane. The buyers pay her, so that good fortune will find its way to the child.

After the harvest, in the places where the cakes reward good children, a bánh coóc mò comes to a child without anyone pulling out a single coin. Perhaps the child has already paid for it, with days of helping at home and in the fields, as much as a child can manage.