Top 10 Most Remarkable Traditional Dishes in the Tet Feast of the Muong Ethnic Group

1. Herbal Sticky Rice Cake

The Muong people in Phu Tho province have many unique dishes, among which is the herbal sticky rice cake, also known as black sticky rice cake, bearing the essence of mountain forests. According to them, during the Lunar New Year, whether rich or poor, for the Muong people in this area, whenever there is an ancestral offering feast, there must be herbal sticky rice cakes on the altar. This herbal sticky rice cake has been around for generations, preserving its traditional features until now.

Since childhood, Muong people have watched their grandmothers and mothers wrap herbal sticky rice cakes, making this activity a traditional beauty. The ingredients for making herbal sticky rice cakes are carefully chosen by the Muong people, including dong leaves, Mỹ Lung glutinous rice, green beans, thinly sliced fatty meat, marinated with spices and pepper. Especially, to create the black color for the cake, the people of Yen Lap Muong use dried fern leaves, thorn leaves, and cầm leaves from the forest, then burn and grind them into powder, mix with water and glutinous rice, stir until the rice blends with the charcoal powder into a black color. The forest leaves used as ingredients for herbal sticky rice cakes not only give the cake a unique flavor and color but also have cooling properties.

2. Bamboo Tube Rice

To speak of the uniqueness of Muong cuisine, bamboo tube rice might be the dish that surprises and delights many travelers. In the past, when Muong people went to work in the fields or ventured into the forest far from home, they brought along some sticky rice. To ensure they had food when hungry, they would cut fresh bamboo tubes, put rice and water inside, and then roast it over a fire to cook it into a meal. Now, that dish has become a specialty of the Northwestern mountainous region and is indispensable during the Lunar New Year.

Bamboo tube rice can be found in many places, with the Tay, Thai, Nung, and Muong people all having their own version. However, the Muong Dong region (Kim Boi, Hoa Binh) is particularly renowned because it boasts fragrant, sticky rice. Hoa Binh bamboo tube rice doesn't contain peanuts or beans, but carefully selected ingredients include fragrant sticky rice mixed with coconut milk. Bamboo tubes and small fresh bamboo shoots are then roasted over charcoal. These steps create the signature aroma and stickiness of Muong Hoa Binh bamboo tube rice. The combination of fragrant sticky rice with the sweet, rich taste of coconut milk and the distinctive aroma of bamboo creates a delicious dish that is hard to find elsewhere.

Five-color sticky rice is a unique dish of the Muong ethnic people in the northern mountainous provinces during every Lunar New Year. Each ethnic group, each region has its way of coloring sticky rice, but for the Muong people in Phu Tho, the dish has distinctive flavors and variations. For the Muong people in Phu Tho, five-color sticky rice is a unique culinary cultural trait that embodies both traditional and modern values. The colors green, red, purple, yellow, and white of the sticky rice represent the five elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.

To make delicious, fragrant, and sticky sticky rice, the cook must strictly adhere to the processes from selecting coloring leaves to preparing the rice. The ingredients for cooking sticky rice must be large, plump glutinous rice grains soaked before coloring. Colors are created using natural ingredients, mainly flowers and forest leaves. Even with the same type of leaves, different processing methods produce different colors, which is the secret of each region, each ethnic group to create a unique feature in this dish. Depending on the soaking time of the rice and the coloring water, the cooked sticky rice will have different shades. Usually, the rice is soaked for 30-40 minutes, then drained and put into a pot for steaming.

The culinary culture during the Tet holiday of the Muong people is shaped by simple and rustic dishes, closely associated with the mountains and forests. It would be incomplete not to mention hill chicken cooked with sour bamboo shoots on the Tet feast. In the cold weather of the early days of the new year, it's perfect to enjoy the sour bamboo shoot soup cooked with chicken, with its mild sour taste and tender chicken meat. Speaking of sour bamboo shoots, almost every kitchen corner of the Muong people here has it, the delicious and fresh bamboo shoots taken from the forest, salted with spring water, extremely attractive, and carrying the distinctive traditional culinary culture of the Muong people.

To make the rich dish of hill chicken cooked with sour bamboo shoots, besides selecting bamboo shoots, choosing the chicken is equally important. Free-range chickens weighing from 0.8 to 1 kg are cleaned, plucked, and gutted. The chicken is then cut into small pieces, marinated with sour bamboo shoots (the longer the bamboo shoots are salted, the better) along with spices for 20-30 minutes to absorb the flavors of the bamboo shoots and spices. Then, it is put into a pot and simmered over a charcoal stove for about 1-2 hours. When the chicken and bamboo shoots are tender, sprinkle some roasted and crushed sesame seeds. When eating, the chicken, sour bamboo shoots, and sesame seeds are mixed together.

Every Tet season, the Mường people in Thanh Sơn prepare their homes, buy necessary items to welcome a warm, happy Tet. And flat cake is a traditional cake that cannot be missed during Tet Nguyen Dan of the Mường people here. People also often place flat cakes on the ancestral altar during Tet to show respect and gratitude to their ancestors. The Mường people in Thanh Sơn also call flat cakes tro cakes, gio cakes, a popular and rustic type of cake passed down through generations in the lives of the people.

However, to create fragrant, delicious flat cakes requires many meticulous and careful steps. Flat cakes are made from two main ingredients: glutinous rice and nước nẳng (a special kind of water). The most important step in the cake-making process is preparing nước nẳng. Only when the nước nẳng is colored and has the right consistency, the cake will be soft, chewy, and beautiful. In different regions, the method of preparing nước nẳng varies. Flat cakes are also a precious remedy, acting as a medicine to aid digestion, relieve intoxication. Enjoying flat cakes, one can feel the fresh aroma of the land hidden within the cake, blending with the sweet taste of honey. Visitors to Thanh Sơn who have the opportunity to taste flat cakes will linger and not want to leave, because it contains both the human affection and the utmost simplicity of the Mường people's homeland.

A must-have specialty for Tet of the Mường ethnic people is roasted whole piglet, beautifully golden-brown. The well-cooked meat has a golden color, crispy skin, accompanied by a fragrant aroma, alluring. Mường people often bring the whole roasted piglet to the feast. After the ceremony, during the ritual, each family member will cut and serve the most delicious, golden-brown, succulent pieces of roasted pork to the guests.

In some regions or families, there is a tradition of arranging the feast. Those who arrange the feast must be elderly men with certain knowledge. Setting up the feast, even placing the direction of the leaves, must be done properly. Dishes made from different parts of the pig must also be arranged correctly so that nothing is missing when the feast is served. According to Mường belief, if any part of the pig is missing during the feast, it is considered as if the ancestors have not received a complete offering, which may bring misfortune to the family.

During the early days of the year, as Tet approaches and the mountains are adorned with fresh green buds and white blossoms, the people of the Mường ethnic group in the highland villages of Thanh Sơn begin their ant egg hunting season. Locally, ant eggs are seen as gifts from the heavens, and when it comes to the most delicious and flavorful dish, ant egg sticky rice is undoubtedly mentioned. This dish is a testament to the unique creativity in the culinary art of the Mường ethnic people, whose livelihoods and spirits are closely tied to the mountains and forests.

Collecting ant eggs is extremely difficult and laborious as ants often build nests on high tree branches with treacherous terrain, thus it is the men in the village who undertake this task. Additionally, preparing ant egg sticky rice may seem simple at first glance, but in reality, it is quite intricate and requires meticulousness. The Mường people have a unique method of cooking sticky rice using a wooden pot. The pot must maintain an even heat to ensure the rice cooks evenly with steam and without the smell of kitchen smoke. While waiting for the rice to cook, the cleaned ant eggs are stir-fried with rendered chicken fat and shallots until fragrant and cooked through. Then, the eggs are scooped into banana leaf boats or bamboo leaves to keep them warm.

Ant egg sticky rice can be enjoyed with various accompaniments. However, the proper way to savor this dish is when the rice is still hot, using bare hands to pinch small clumps of sticky rice, placing them into the mouth to chew slowly, savoring the fragrant stickiness of the glutinous rice and the burst of tiny ant eggs releasing a sweet, mildly spicy aroma, followed by the sudden rush of rich, nutty sweetness.

Mường people have many flavorful dishes made from forest leaves, along streamsides, or in home gardens. Among them, banana blossom soup is a remarkable dish that is indispensable not only in daily meals but also in the festive feast of the Mường people during Tết. Banana blossom soup is very easy to prepare and very simple in terms of ingredients, not as complicated as many other dishes.

To prepare this dish, the Mường people gather ingredients such as young banana blossom trunks, pork bones or legs, betel leaves, pepper leaves picked from the forest or home gardens, and toasted sesame seeds. Banana blossom soup, when cooked, has a pale white color from the banana blossom, green from the betel leaves, purple from the pepper leaves, and a black speckled color from the crushed sesame seeds. All blend together to make a bowl of soup with rich colors of the Mường ethnic group. When eaten, banana blossom soup has the sweetness of pork bones, the fragrant sweetness and crunchiness of banana blossoms, the aromatic flavor of betel leaves, and a slight spiciness from the toasted sesame seeds. If tasted for the first time, the eater will find it very exotic and enticing.

When it comes to the most characteristic dish of the Mường people during Tet, sour meat is definitely a name that cannot be overlooked. Each ethnic group has a different way of making sour meat. For the Mường people, they have their own unique way of making sour pork, with the sourness of the meat fermented, the crispiness of the skin, and the fragrant aroma of toasted rice, blending together to create a flavorful dish that leaves a lasting impression on anyone who tastes it.

Making delicious and distinctive sour meat requires a lot of effort. To prepare sour meat, the people of Phu Ha village only select pork belly, pork shoulder, and pork loin that have been thoroughly cleaned from the native pigs as ingredients. After carefully selecting and cleaning the meat, all tendons are removed, and then the meat is grilled on a cast iron pan or charcoal. This is a particularly important step as it determines the flavor and quality of the sour meat. The people of Phu Ha village often prepare large bamboo tubes, line them with guava leaves, then place the meat marinated with toasted rice inside, cover the top with guava leaves, and tightly seal the mouth of the tube. Once done, they usually hang or store them in high, airy places.

Love Cakes are a specialty of the Mường people in Hoa Binh. The cakes have many names that are quite poetic and meaningful such as love cakes, couple cakes, husband and wife cakes, or solidarity cakes... Love cakes are the pride of the Mường people, a unique aspect of the culinary culture of a mountainous region during every Tet festival. In the Mường language, love cakes are called 'peẻng uôi'. No one knows exactly when love cakes originated, not even the elders in the village, but it's known that the tradition has been passed down through many generations.

The main ingredient to make these delicious cakes is glutinous rice flour. These cakes are very simple yet have a distinctive shape and flavor that delights the eater. Making love cakes is straightforward but requires attention to detail. The most important step is preparing the flour. The rice used for the cakes is chosen from fragrant glutinous rice. The rice is soaked in water for about 2 hours until soft, then drained and ground. Love cakes can be made with two types of fillings, savory and sweet. If it's a sweet filling, it's made with black beans (a characteristic bean of the Mường people in Hoa Binh) or mung beans. According to the locals, black beans are the best. The black beans are cooked until soft, mashed, mixed with sugar, and then used as a filling. For the savory filling, simply marinate pork with spices and a little pepper.