Top 10 Special Dishes of Tày Ethnic Group

A rustic dish filled with warmth and simplicity, yet holding profound emotions. A type of cake made from extremely simple ingredients, easy to make but exceptionally delicious. Bánh gio, a humble cake, has become a culinary specialty of the Tày people.

Bánh gio (rice cake), known in Tày language as “Pẻng tấu”, is a type of cake made on festive occasions, offered to the land, the sky, and ancestors. This is a traditional cake, indispensable in the rituals of the Tày ethnic group. The name 'bánh gio' comes from the main ingredient of the cake, which is fine ash. Ash is used to soak the rice for making the cake and used as boiling water for the cake. Tày people use wood from the ironwood tree, the sau tree, sticky rice straw, etc., to burn into fine ash, then filter to get yellow-brown ash water. The Tày people soak the rice in ash water for a few hours until the rice grains are soft, puffy, and easily crushed between two fingers. The rice used for making the cake is pure sticky rice, not mixed with regular rice. After soaking, the rice is scooped out and rinsed with clean water, then drained. The cake is wrapped in jungle dong leaves, selecting large leaves, removing the veins, then boiling and drying them.

The wrapping process requires the skill of Tày women. The rice is drained, mixed with a little salt, then wrapped in dong leaves, carefully pressed and evenly spread to make the cake compact and beautiful. The rice must be tightly packed inside the leaf, then wrapped and the ends folded tightly, and finally tied with soft rattan, not too tight but not too loose. After wrapping, the cake is boiled for about 5 to 6 hours until tender. The boiling water for the cake is diluted ash water, boiled with forest wood to achieve the best flavor.

Whether the cake is good or not, you can tell by looking at it. When peeled, the cake shines with a translucent amber color, like a gem, indicating its deliciousness. When eaten, dip the cake in sugarcane syrup and enjoy. The cake has a sweet, refreshing taste, mixed with a slightly bitter taste of ash water, making it enjoyable without being overwhelming. That's when you realize how skillful the Tày people are in preparing their dishes, not as elaborate or meticulous as the Thais, but the flavor always reflects the distinctive characteristics of their ethnic group as well as the mountainous forest products in the North.

Dried buffalo meat is a common delicacy found in the meals of the Tày ethnic group in Tuyên Quang province. Not only is dried buffalo meat known for its rich flavors of the highlands and cultural heritage of the region, but it's also a familiar dish among the locals, often offered as a gift to visitors when visiting Tuyên Quang.

Many tourists opt for dried buffalo meat as a gift, appreciating its fragrant aroma and the natural spices used in its preparation. Buffalo meat from the mountains of Tuyên Quang has long been renowned for its delicious, fragrant, and clean qualities. Buffalo are raised not only for plowing but also for ceremonial purposes, festivals, especially for various products made from buffalo horns, hides, and of course, buffalo meat.

The aroma of dried buffalo meat, especially when paired with Na Hang fermented corn liquor, is unforgettable. The unique flavor of this dish is a result of the smoky aroma from the wood-fired stove blending with wild spices and forest leaves. Many wonder why dried buffalo meat is a specialty of the Northwest region and not attempted elsewhere in the plains. The answer lies in the fact that only buffalo raised in the Northwest's rugged terrain, mountain passes, and hills have firm, distinctive, and chewy meat.

It's the spicy, sweet, rich, and unique taste on every bite that makes dried buffalo meat a delicacy, unforgettable after just one taste. It's safe to say that this dish is highly renowned in the Northwest, a product that awakens all senses when mentioned.

Five-Colored Sticky Rice (also known as black and red rice) is an essential dish for the Tày ethnic group during festivals and Tet. The rice comes in 5 colors: white, red, green, purple, and yellow. It's a flavorful dish where people creatively use natural ingredients available locally to create the colors.

Traditionally, the Tày ethnic group's steamed cake is usually filled with beans and peanuts. The flour used for steamed cake is typically ground flour, but Tày women make meticulously crafted black sesame steamed cakes. They choose glutinous rice to make the cake, which must be evenly shaped and soaked in water for about 30 minutes. Then, when the glutinous rice is evenly cooked and sticky, Tày women put it in a clean mortar to pound until smooth.

The pounding process takes almost an hour, requiring Tày women to have strength and patience. The rhythm of pounding the cake must be consistent. Women in a Tày family often help each other pound the steamed cakes. To make black sesame filling for the steamed cake, Tày women start harvesting sesame from March or April each year and finish in July or August. After harvesting, they store the sesame in jars for making steamed cakes. The sesame seeds are roasted over low heat, constantly stirred until they are cooked but not burnt. When the sesame is cooked and emits a mild fragrance, it is ready for pounding.

However, the delicious aroma of the steamed cake with black sesame filling is not only due to the sesame seeds but also to another indispensable ingredient, which is sugarcane molasses. Tày women do not mix black sesame with pre-cooked sugar syrup for the filling because it would lose its aroma. Instead, they mix black sesame with molasses. The molasses are obtained by peeling and squeezing sugarcane to extract the juice, which is then cooked until it becomes thick and sticky. The molasses are carefully preserved by Tày women. Banana leaves for wrapping the cake are collected from the forest, then heated over a flame to make them soft and pliable.

During weddings, engagement ceremonies, or bride and groom presentations, the black sesame steamed cake is an essential ceremonial item for the groom's family. Because the black sesame steamed cake in weddings symbolizes the wish for complete and perfect happiness. The mother-in-law also wants to convey her family's expertise and wisdom through these fragrant and pliable black sesame steamed cakes to the daughter-in-law.

Today, black sesame steamed cake is a unique delicacy of the Tày people introduced to tourists. In many places, due to time constraints, the traditional black sesame steamed cake has been somewhat modified, such as using machines instead of manual pounding, or mixing black sesame with pre-cooked sugar syrup for the filling. However, the traditional method of making steamed cakes by Tày women still produces the most fragrant and pliable cakes, unlike any other.

Roasted pork: a famous dish of the Tày Văn Lãng people (Lạng Sơn). To make this dish, people often choose local pigs with small bones, firm meat, and lots of fat, weighing from 20 kg to 30 kg. The pig will be roasted over the smoldering flames of charcoal, rotated evenly for about 3 hours until fully cooked. When the outer skin is dry, a mixture of honey and vinegar is brushed onto it to make the skin golden and crispy...

Depending on the scale of the event, different weights of pigs will be roasted: During the Tet festival (3rd day of the 3rd lunar month), So loọc (6th day of the 6th lunar month), Slíp slí (14th day of the 7th lunar month), usually 5-6 families will share a pig weighing about 40-50kg each; during weddings, people often roast 3-4 pigs, each weighing from 70-80kg, and some families even roast pigs weighing more than a ton.

When it comes to cuisine, the famous cakes of the Tày ethnic group cannot ignore the Cooc Mò cake. Cooc Mò is the name of a famous traditional cake of the Tày ethnic group. In the Tày language, mò means buffalo horn, and the cake's shape resembles the pointed horn of a buffalo.

According to tradition, during a child's first birthday celebration, regardless of the season, the Tày people always make Cooc Mò cakes. These small and delicate cakes are placed in the child's hand along with good wishes for them to grow up healthy, strong, and obedient. Nowadays, Cooc Mò cakes are made and sold year-round by Tày and Nùng villagers at local markets. In some areas, after each harvest season, villagers make Cooc Mò cakes to celebrate the new rice crop and to reward well-behaved children.

Cooc Mò cakes are made by Tày and Nùng villagers using glutinous rice as the main ingredient, along with a small amount of peanuts and salt. Villagers often choose the best glutinous rice, known as yellow flower sticky rice, which is round, white, and grown on terraced fields, resulting in fragrant and sticky cakes.

Enjoying Cooc Mò cakes reveals the chewy, fragrant taste of freshly cooked glutinous rice, combined with the earthy flavor of dong leaves, and the rich taste of pork. Although the cake has no filling, thorough chewing allows guests to experience the fragrant, rich, and chewy texture hidden within each glutinous rice grain. Sweet lovers can enjoy Cooc Mò cakes with honey or cane sugar.

Each region, each ethnic group has its own unique culinary culture, and the Tày people in Mù Cang Chải are no exception. They have incredibly unique dishes that create a distinct identity. One of these cannot be overlooked is the 'ant egg sticky rice' - a specialty of the Tày people in Mù Cang Chải.

Ant egg sticky rice is made from the main ingredients of terraced glutinous rice and black ant eggs found in the forest. Additionally, there are spices that create a fragrant aroma blending into each soft and sticky rice grain, including fragrant kieu roots cooked with chicken fat, and wrapped in banana leaves. Black ant eggs are only available on the last days of spring, around the end of the lunar month of March and early April, when the damp rainy weather is conducive to the proliferation of ants.

Not all types of ant eggs can be eaten; people often choose the eggs of large black ants that build their nests high up in tall trees in deep forests, because only these ant eggs are big enough, fragrant enough, and sweet enough to stimulate the taste buds of even the most discerning diners. To collect ant eggs, locals use a fishing rod or a long stick to puncture the ant nest and put it in a sieve, with a tub placed below the sieve. Then, cut the ant nest into small pieces and gently tap to let the ant eggs fall through the sieve into the tub. To separate the ants from the sieve, people use leaves or branches for the ants to cling onto. When the sieve is full of clinging ants, discard the branches or leaves and continue this process 4-5 times until the sieve and nest are free of ants. After collecting the ant eggs, they must be gently filtered to remove all impurities, then soaked in clean warm water and gently stirred to wash the eggs and drain. Once cleaned, the ant eggs are marinated with spices and stir-fried with fragrant kieu roots that have been fried with chicken fat to make them aromatic, fully cooked, and emit an attractive fragrance. At this point, the ant eggs are placed in banana leaves and added to the already cooked sticky rice, with the fragrant aroma of the ant eggs combined with the aroma of the sticky rice, creating a rich and appetizing flavor.

Ant egg sticky rice is also an indispensable dish in the festivals of the Tày people, especially during the Hàn Thực festival on the 3rd day of the 3rd lunar month every year, where Tày ethnic people always offer ant egg sticky rice or ant egg cakes as offerings to the village's Thành Hoàng.