Buzz
In my memory, plain cakes have always been a countryside gift evoking childhood memories, the tough yet happy years when satisfying the craving for sweets was a joy...
A trip to Sơn Tây indulging in childhood memories of plain cakes
A younger sister from Đà Nẵng visiting Hanoi for leisure, some friends invited for a photo shoot. In the gloomy afternoon sun, two cars trailed along the riverbank against the current, circling around heading towards Sơn Tây.
The lush green fields on either side of the riverbank amidst the misty smoke hue, shimmering. The Central Vietnamese girl chirping like a bird on the carefully built embankment, constantly muttering, after a long time feeling the sensation of home.
I drove along the riverbank, occasionally turning onto small roads cutting through the fields, circling around for a while then returning to the riverbank. The breeze, spacious surroundings, the motorcycles, bicycles, and makeshift vehicles hastily returning home in the twilight.
After visiting Chu Quyến temple, one of the renowned temples in Đoài land, also known as Chàng temple, we followed our instincts to find National Highway 32 heading back to Hanoi.
Along National Highway 32 passing through the town of Sơn Tây, there are numerous shops selling plain cakes with a common pattern consisting of an advertising sign and a stacked box of goods next to it. The genuine products are kept warm in the foam box deep inside.
Sơn Tây's plain cakes are famous not only in Hanoi but also nationwide. Sơn Tây boasts the Phú Nhi plain cake craft village, and within less than a decade, this rural snack has become a renowned specialty of Đoài land far and wide.
In Hanoi, urban dwellers eager to reminisce about childhood memories of village life can easily find boiled peanuts, sweet potatoes, roasted corn, or various types of cakes like bánh giò, plain cakes, sticky rice cakes, whether at makeshift markets, street vendors, or any corner of the city.
Occasionally passing through Sơn Tây, it's also convenient to stop and buy Phú Nhi plain cakes as gifts. The craft village even exports cakes to Saigon, let alone stopping by this land.
Of course, not all shops are equally delicious and of good quality, but it seems that the people of Sơn Tây also have a sense of preserving the brand, every business wants customers to come and buy not just once.
Before dinner time, to ease our stomachs, we stopped by a small shop near Văn Miếu Sơn Tây to sip hot tea and unwrap a few plain cakes for immediate taste testing to assess the quality of Phú Nhi plain cakes as rumored.
The process of making plain cakes is basically the same, like in the old days my mother used to soak glutinous rice overnight then drain it before grinding with a stone mortar, called grinding rice flour. Letting the flour settle, removing the excess water, then adding clean water to soak again, then draining before putting it in the pot to cook.
This step is called kneading dough, the skill and experience in kneading dough of the cake maker will determine the success or failure of the plain cakes.
Back then, my mother used to wrap plain cakes in cone shapes, they look no different from present-day bánh giò. Phú Nhi plain cakes, on the other hand, are wrapped in the shape of an irregular tooth. Many places in the North call plain cakes 'tooth-shaped cakes', about the length of a forearm, slightly bulging in the middle, with flat tapered ends.
Plain cakes are wrapped in dong leaves, wrapped outside with several loops of string. The filling consists of minced pork, lean meat with little fat such as shoulder meat or rib meat, finely chopped wood ear mushrooms marinated with just enough fish sauce and pepper.
The filling is evenly spread along the boat-shaped mold of the cake batter, never adding too much filling in the 'eat to fill your mouth' style, just adding a little bit just enough to eat with the cake crust. After wrapping, steam for about 40 minutes until cooked.
Allow the plain cakes to cool, peel them to release the fragrant smell of dong leaves. The crust of the cake is either pure white or slightly pale green. Dip them in spicy chili sauce or delicious fish sauce according to preference. Some prefer to eat the cakes hot, especially as the northern weather transitions to winter.
Nowadays, many artisans in craft villages are adopting new technologies in cake making to save labor, ensure quality, and produce quantities at reasonable costs, catering to hundreds or thousands of customers near and far every day while retaining the taste of the homeland.
I take a sip of hot fragrant tea, watching the glimmering lights of sweeping vehicles on National Highway 32, wondering, how many Phú Nhi plain cakes are carried to new homes and new lands every day?
How many customers will be like me when holding a fragrant plain cake with the scent of dong leaves and reminiscing about childhood days?
According to Thủy OCG/Tuổi Trẻ
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Explore: Travel guide on Mytour
MytourJanuary 13, 2017
