Khmer Ka Tum Cakes

The last strip of young thốt nốt leaf stretches across the top of the woven shell, then is pulled hard into a knot. From that knot a small flower with four petals rises, fresh and green. Below the flower sits a little box of leaf, each strip fitted tight against the next. Turn it any way, and there is only woven leaf. Nothing inside can be seen.

That is how a bánh ka tum is closed, on the table of a Khmer woman in Ô Lâm. Bánh ka tum is a small cake of sticky rice sealed inside woven palm leaf. Ô Lâm is a mountain commune in the Bảy Núi area. It lies in An Giang province. The Khmer are the largest group here, and their traditional cake is now made mainly in this very place.

To tie that knot, she has to start with the young leaves.

Thốt nốt is the palmyra palm, a tall fan palm. Around Tri Tôn and Tịnh Biên, these palms grow in great numbers, woven into the daily life of the Khmer. The same tree gives a sweet sap that is boiled down into sugar, but the cake needs only the leaves. And they must be young leaves.

On every day of cake making, young leaves are gathered while still fresh. Young leaves are soft, easy to bend and easy to fold, and their pale green is lovely to look at. Old leaves will not do. They are too dark, they have no fragrance, and they are too stiff to bend.

She washes the leaves clean and cuts them into thin strips. Then she begins to weave. One strip threads through another, is knotted, then threads on. Strip by strip, a square frame slowly takes shape. She leaves one small hole, so the filling can go in later.

Every strip must be even and tight. Every join must be sealed, without a single gap. Each cake must also be the same size as the next. One careless knot, and the cake loses its pomegranate shape at once.

Of all the work on the cake, weaving the shell is the hardest and takes the most effort. The leaf must be tight enough to hold the filling, yet soft enough not to tear. Some say one shell takes about 15 minutes. Others say it can take as long as half an hour.

She has prepared the filling beforehand, each part on its own. The sticky rice soaked overnight, and in the morning she left it to drain. She boiled the white beans until they were soft. She mixed grated coconut with sugar and a pinch of salt. Some families add a little coconut milk too. Then she mixed the rice, the beans and the coconut together. That is all the filling holds, with nothing added to make it keep longer.

In the past, bánh ka tum was made with a traditional fragrant sticky rice. It grew for about six months before it was ready to harvest. That rice is rare now, so many families make the cake with ordinary sticky rice.

The mouth of the shell is only a small hole, so she adds the filling a little at a time, very slowly. Pinch by pinch, it slips through the opening and settles snugly inside the green box of leaf.

Now comes the last strip of leaf. She draws it across the opening and pulls it hard into a knot. The flower with four petals rises again, fresh and green. The knot locks the cake shut, and it also sits on top as a graceful finishing touch.

Once they are wrapped, she drops the cakes one by one into a pot of water to boil. In the pot, the leaf shells slowly change color, from fresh green to pale yellow. The scent of thốt nốt leaf rises, a sign that the cakes are done. She lifts them out and rinses them in cool water, so the rice inside will not stick to the leaf. Then she sets the cakes out one by one to cool a little.

Once cool, bánh ka tum is soft and chewy and rich with coconut, sweet with a slight touch of salt. The young leaf wrapping gives the cake its fragrance and keeps the rice chewy.

In the Khmer language, the name ka tum is understood in two ways. Some say it means pomegranate. Others say it means wrapped closed all around. Looking at the tightly sealed cake, either reading seems to make sense.

The cake is tiny, somewhat square yet nicely rounded, and its leaf shell looks like a pomegranate. In the Theravada Buddhism of the Khmer, the shape of the pomegranate stands for fullness and plenty. The cake also brings to mind a whole family gathered together.

The Khmer often make bánh ka tum for their major festivals. One is Chôl Chnăm Thmây, the Khmer New Year. Another is Sen Dolta, a festival in memory of the ancestors. The cake also appears at Ok Om Bok, a time to pray for a good harvest.

Sen Dolta comes at the end of the eighth lunar month and the start of the ninth. Children and grandchildren who work far away come back home. Together they sweep the house, wipe the altar and cook traditional dishes to remember their ancestors.

During the big festivals of the year, she offers the cakes to heaven and earth and sets a few on the ancestral altar. By now the leaf shells have turned pale yellow. When guests come by, she sets the cakes out for them too, as a warm welcome.

Making the cake takes so much work that few people still make it today. In Ô Lâm, the women's association has formed a cake-making group to pass the craft on to young people. The cake of Bảy Núi has also traveled with its makers to festivals of folk cakes.

On the table, the cakes have cooled completely. All the way around, there seems to be no place to begin. Every strip of leaf is woven tight against another. An adult eating one for the first time sometimes has to reach for scissors. Those who know the cake turn it slowly and look for a leaf end tucked under the woven strips.

There it is, that leaf end. Followed gently, it lets the woven strips loosen bit by bit. Wrapped closed all around as it is, the cake still keeps a way in, exactly as small as one leaf end, for anyone who knows how to look.