The Legend of Banh Chung and Banh Day

Out in the yard, a big pot of water bubbles over a wood fire. It is the night of the 30th, the last night of the lunar year. Tomorrow is Tết, the Lunar New Year festival in Vietnam. The steam smells of dong leaves and sticky rice, and of a little warm wood smoke. In the pot lie square cakes called bánh chưng, carefully tied and stacked together. They will cook through the whole long night. The family sits around the fire, tending the flames and waiting. And while they wait, the grandmother often tells her grandchild why the family has these green bánh chưng every Tết.

The old tale goes like this. Grandparents have handed it down, generation after generation. It was written down in a very old book of folk tales called Lĩnh Nam chích quái, compiled around the 14th century. It is a tale, not a dated history. But it is so gentle and lovely that Vietnamese people have kept it to this day.

Legend says that in those days, the sixth of the Hùng Kings had grown old. He wanted to choose one of his children to take the throne after him. He would not choose by birth order, or simply pick the strongest. Instead, he made a very unusual promise. At the coming festival, whoever offered the most delicious and meaningful dish for the ancestors would inherit the throne.

Hearing this, the princes at once sent people far and wide to find fine and rare foods. Some went up into the deep forests, others down to the deep sea. Each prince wanted his offering tray to be grand, precious and overflowing.

But among those princes, the grandmother goes on, there was one named Lang Liêu, the poorest of them all. He lost his mother early and grew up among the rice fields. His hands were more used to planting rice than to handling gold and silver. He had no rare treasures at home, and no one to send out searching. He sat on the doorstep, full of love for his father, with no idea what to offer him.

The grandmother drops her voice very low, as if telling a secret. Then one night, the prince had a strange dream. A god appeared beside him, smiled and spoke. "My child, in all of heaven and earth, nothing is as precious as a grain of rice. Rice keeps people alive, and it is made by the sweat of the very people who plant it. Take sticky rice and make a cake from it to offer the king."

Lang Liêu woke up overjoyed. So the most precious thing of all was not deep in the forests or far out at sea. It lay right in the hands of a rice farmer like him.

The next morning, he rolled up his sleeves and set to work. The grandmother points to the pot in the yard: this is just how he did it. He washed the sticky rice clean and soaked it until soft. He cooked mung beans and pounded them smooth for the filling, then seasoned a little meat to make it richer. Then he wrapped the rice and beans in green dong leaves, shaping a neat square cake. He tied it tight and set it in a pot to cook all night long. He called this square cake bánh chưng. It is square to stand for the earth, which feeds the plants, the rice and the people.

From that same sticky rice, he steamed a batch and pounded it until soft and smooth. Then he shaped it into a round cake, pure white, called bánh dày. It is round to stand for the high blue sky overhead. One cake square, one cake round. One for the earth, one for the sky. Two small cakes, with all of heaven and earth wrapped up inside them.

On the day of the offering, the trays of the other princes were piled with delicacies from the mountains and the sea. Every dish was precious, and every dish gleamed. But on the tray Lang Liêu brought, there were only two kinds of plain cake, one square and green with dong leaves, one round and pure white.

The king, his father, walked around looking at every tray. At the tray from Lang Liêu, he stopped, picked up a cake and tasted it. It was soft and fragrant, rich and nutty, filling without ever feeling heavy. Then the son spoke to his father about the round sky and the square earth. He spoke of the rice that feeds people, and of the love a child offers to its parents. Legend says that when the king had heard him out, his eyes filled with tears. He saw that this poor son had not brought him rare and costly foods. He had brought his whole devotion as a son, and a deep understanding of heaven and earth.

So the king chose Lang Liêu to succeed him. He also gave all his people a beautiful command. From then on, every household was to make bánh chưng and bánh dày each New Year, as offerings to the ancestors. In this way they would remember with gratitude the parents who gave them life, and the rice that fed them.

That command lives on to this day. So many springs have passed, and so many generations have followed one another. Yet every Tết, Vietnamese families still sit beside a pot of bánh chưng over a glowing fire. The same sticky rice, the same green dong leaves. The story of Lang Liêu does not live in faraway books. It lives right in the family kitchen.

Just like tonight. The pot in the yard is still bubbling, and the family gathers close around the fire, waiting for dawn to lift out the cakes. Each green bánh chưng comes out of the water, is wiped dry and pressed neatly square. And with every one, the family carries on a story that was written down more than 600 years ago.