Hmong New Year Rice Cakes

Inside the long wooden mortar, the grains of upland sticky rice are disappearing. Nobody eats them, and nobody takes a single grain away. Two wooden pestles take turns pounding down. Grain sticks to grain, until not one grain stands on its own.

Two young Hmong men stand at the two ends of the mortar. They pound in perfect rhythm, every stroke quick and firm, without a pause. The rice must be pounded while it is still hot. Once it cools, it becomes very hard to pound.

The pestles are made of hardwood and are very heavy to lift. Of all the work that goes into a batch of cakes, pounding is the hardest, and it usually falls to strong young men. When two of them tire, they hand the pestles to two others.

In the days just before the New Year, this beat of pestles rings out across the Hmong villages of the highlands. Some villages pound on the 30th, the last day of the old year. Wherever the Hmong live, the New Year has bánh dày, the round cakes made from this pounded sticky rice. Every household makes sure to have a whole tray of them. On the tray of offerings to the ancestors, bánh dày can never be missing.

The traditional Hmong New Year comes about a month earlier than Tết, the Lunar New Year festival in Vietnam. It arrived once the harvest on the hillside fields was finished. Now many villages welcome the New Year with the rest of the country, so those who study or work far away can come home. The date has moved, but the old Hmong New Year customs are still kept.

The rice in that mortar began as upland sticky rice, which families usually grow themselves. Its grains are large and even, fragrant and sticky. After the harvest, families dry the rice in plenty of sun, so the grains do not break when it is husked and milled.

Close to the pounding day, the household washes the rice and soaks it until soft. Then it goes into a wooden steamer and is steamed until cooked. A wooden steamer keeps the rice fragrant and stops the grains from turning mushy. The person at the steamer keeps checking, again and again, until the rice is thoroughly done. That steaming gives the cakes part of their chewiness and flavor.

The mortar is a whole tree trunk. Its maker chooses a solid, fine-grained, fragrant wood and hollows out the trunk. The inside is long and deep, shaped like a dugout canoe. Many places call it the wooden trough. To keep the rice from sticking, some places rub a layer of oil on the mortar and the pestles. In some villages of Lai Châu, people use chicken egg yolk instead of oil.

As soon as the rice is cooked and still hot, the adults tip it straight into the mortar, and the two pestles start again. They pound on and on, until the whole batch becomes one smooth, thick, sticky mass. The smoother and stickier the rice, the whiter and finer the cakes.

The women of the household lift the dough out of the mortar. In some places they first cut it into portions, then shape each one by hand. They press the dough into round, flat cakes, all the same size. The rounder a cake, the lovelier it looks. The Hmong in Nghệ An have a name of their own for these round cakes: lu dúa. There, the people who shape them rub cooked egg yolk on their hands so the rice will not stick.

The family has already washed each lá dong leaf and each wild banana leaf, then wiped them dry. Every leaf must be whole, without a single tear. As each cake is shaped, it goes straight onto a leaf, on flat woven trays set out in advance.

Around the mortar, everyone has a task. Some pound, some turn the dough, some shape the cakes. Men and women of the household all lend a hand. For the young people of the village, each pounding is also a chance to learn, and to hold on to a fine part of their own village life.

In many villages and communes, the pounding has now also become a contest in early spring or during festivals. One year, in Co Mạ, a commune in Sơn La province, the villages held such a contest at their spring festival. Each team pounded for about 15 minutes, then everyone gathered to shape and wrap the cakes. The team whose cakes were the chewiest and smoothest, and who wrapped them the fastest, won. The people of Co Mạ held the contest to show that clans, families and the whole village stand together as one.

On the trays, the white cakes now sit in rows. In the eyes of the Hmong, each round cake is the moon and the sun, the source from which people and all things were born. Some places also say the cake stands for love, for the faithfulness of a young Hmong couple. The people of Tà Số in Mộc Châu believe that the bigger, rounder and more plentiful the cakes, the fuller life will be.

Bánh dày is best just after it is made, soft, chewy and fragrant with wild lá dong leaves. Adults also grill the cakes over glowing coals, or cut them into small pieces and fry them until they puff up. In Nghệ An, the Hmong still grill the cakes beside a charcoal fire, as they always have. The banana leaf wrapping chars and gives off a fragrant smell, while the inside puffs up and stays white. Some families dip bánh dày in honey, and the people of Tà Số eat it with homemade sugarcane syrup.

Back at the wooden mortar, the pestles are slowing now. The last stroke comes down, and the women of the house lift out the dough and shape the final batch of cakes.

The adults take the most beautiful, roundest cakes and offer them to the ancestors first. Only then are the rest shared with relatives, friends and guests. Each cake holds the rice of a whole year of hard work on the hillside fields, the effort of everyone in the household. With these cakes, the children and grandchildren give thanks to their grandparents, their ancestors, and heaven and earth. They wish for a new year of plenty, good health for all, well-behaved children and a happy family.

In Mộc Châu, the Hmong offer the first six pairs of cakes to heaven and earth and to the god of the harvest. That makes 12 round cakes for the 12 months ahead, shaped from the grains that just disappeared inside the mortar. The rest of the cakes are packed into jars of pơ mu wood and tightly closed. They are kept to eat and to serve honored guests in the New Year days to come.

Over the New Year, the Hmong visit one another's homes with good wishes, and bánh dày is what they serve their guests. Wrapped in leaves, the cakes keep for a long time. In Mù Cang Chải, families give cakes to visitors, along with a wish for a year of plenty and a bountiful harvest. Some homes there even give a parting guest two bánh dày as a New Year gift.

Beside the altar, many families have already set out the hoe, the spade and the knife. In some places the tools go right on the altar. The household sticks paper onto each one, and for the three days of the New Year, nobody takes them out to use. This is their way of thanking the tools, as if letting them rest for the New Year too.

By old custom, the Hmong do not stay up for midnight on New Year's Eve. They wait for a rooster instead. On the morning of the first day, somewhere in the village, the first rooster crows.