Let's put aside the cultural elements that are overlapping, causing the Vietnamese people's Third Festival to overlap with the Chinese People's practice of celebrating the real Lunar New Year, which was to commemorate the kind person, Gioi Tu Thoi, who died.
This is similar to the New Year's Day of the Vietnamese people, which is the "pests-destroying" Tet on the hottest day of the year, not to commemorate the Lunar New Year of the once-in-a-lifetime country under the Mich La River. In return, the Korean Tet is actually celebrated for 3 days, from the third day to the end of the fifth day, not as neatly on the third day as our third day.
The origin of the Lunar New Year of the Vietnamese people is because of the importance of the third lunar month to the rice civilization. That is when the fields are thoroughly plowed to prepare for sowing for the new crop. The fields have been rested, watered enough, and absorbed the spring air, now it is time to wake up and sow.
In a rice civilization, whether there will be a bumper or failed crop, Vietnamese people often look to heaven, the land, the clouds, the rain, the sun and the blessings of their ancestors. Therefore, when the Lunar New Year comes, Vietnamese people respect their ancestors with dishes made from rice grains.
In addition, from the inspiration that Au Co's mother gave birth to hundreds of children from hundreds of eggs in the same fetus - the origin of the word "compatriot", with one fetus - she led the Vietnamese people to make round cakes made from rice flour, sticky rice flour such as banh Noi, banh chay, banh trung ga, banh nhot to offer.
The round shape of the cake is the shape of an egg that Au Co's mother invented with her father Lac Long Quan, and from there gave birth to the origin of the Vietnamese people, even if they had to go to the forest to follow their mother and go to the sea to follow their father, they still respectfully call each other in two words "compatriots".
Making egg-shaped cakes is also a remembrance of the painful merits of the concubine and mother country. The cakes made and offered on the third day of the Lunar New Year also have many meanings, because just a week after the third day, the whole nation is eager to shape the cakes and make banh chung to celebrate the Hung Van Vuong's death anniversary on the tenth day of the third lunar month.
In addition, the round shape of the cakes is called "perfection", contained in the word "perfection", expressing the wish for everything, everything in the year to be perfect and full. From farming - farming - cultivating - cursing to studying - serving - serving - being hospitable, then housework, villagework, and water work are all flowing like vegetarian banh floating.
Banh tre and banh chay are made from sticky rice flour. The sticky rice is ground in a stone mortar and then put into a hanging cloth, waiting for the water to stop flowing, then the flour is taken to make the cake. The banh tre will be shaped into round banh xeo like large balls of scallops, filled with a square border, then boiled.
When cooked, the cake will float, soaked in cold water to cook until hot, not sticking together. Then, remove the cake and drain the juice and place it on a plate, sprinkle the fragrant white and gold sesame on the top of the cake. Seeing a plate of floating cakes is beautiful, like white pearls or round eggs, worthy of being an offering to heaven, earth and ancestors.
The vegetarian cake is made larger, the size of a tablecloth, filling with green beans, peeling the finished product, pureeing, stir-frying with the rock and filling the members like a banh flo. Then, stuff the filling in the cake crust and squeeze it tightly, round and boil like vegetarian cake.
After picking up, put the vegetarian cake in a bowl, use a spoon to fill the top part slightly, sprinkle the cooked green beans in that part of the steamer, then pour the sugar water stir-fried from the kudzu powder, the fresh ginger water, and the sugar to flood the cake. Sprinkle the grated white sesame and grated coconut rice on top with grapefruit essential oil for extra flavor.
The tray of banh cuon and banh cuon like that is all over the place. The cakes are white, the cake pieces are not stuck together, the cake shape is round, not distorted, the inside border is still square and "square-square", gathering the whole sky and the earth in one cake.
The vegetarian cake bowl is full, the sugar water is white and not dirty, covered with half-sunk, half-floating cake balls. The green bean seeds form a flower bud, giving off the aroma of sticky rice and grapefruit flower juice that is extremely pure and refreshing. Squeeze a plate of banh troi and a bowl of banh chay onto the altar to burn incense, until the harvest, it will have a temporary, extremely rich, rich scent.
Banh flo is eaten using a toothpick in the balls. When the cake ball is bitten, the flexible layer of the khaki will touch the sweet taste of the sugar, and the aroma of roasted sesame. Vegetarian cakes are eaten in tablespoons. Use a spoonful of the cake cake cake cake cake cake cake pieces, then scoop a spoonful of both cake and water to eat.
Therefore, when seeing the Vietnamese people eagerly pounding rice, grinding flour, making cakes, boiling cakes and displaying floating rice flour trays and vegetarian cakes to make them beautiful for offerings, no one will feel moved to remember the origin of the nation and the merits of the two Tien - Dragon.
The beauty of the cake pieces and the fullness of the cake trays made from materials boiled from the soil and then shaped into a circle is a symbol of heaven. In the Vietnamese rice civilization, nothing is more important than heaven and earth, more important than the square of the meaning of a mother being a square child.
Therefore, making banh flo and banh chay on the third day of the Lunar New Year is both a way to send people's wishes to heaven and earth in the past to go to the fields to hope for a bumper crop, and a reminder and reminder of Au Co's mother's egg-wrapping, which has created the solidarity of the Vietnamese people.
