Travel to Vietnam & Discover traditional Tet Holiday

The lunar calendar shows that Tet is coming, and from now until then, all things are Tet. The streets are Tet, the talk is Tet, the thoughts are Tet, the shopping is Tet, it's a Tet world in Vietnam right now and everybody knows it.

Tet is the most cherished time of the year in Vietnam. It is when the cities empty out and thousands go back to the countryside where they were born. City dwellers often choose to spend time at home. The streets empty out. The horns quiet, the traffic no longer congests and the hustle and bustle of city life, for a few days every year, comes to a halt.



New year's Eve in Vietnam
As Vietnam develops and its expat population grows, the holiday has also come to hold a special meaning with foreigners as well.

"For me, Christmas was always the big holiday but now, Christmas is just a sign that Tet is approaching," shared Karen Merlin who has lived in Hanoi for over 4 years now. "It's hands down the best time of year, it is a time to catch your breath, relax and reflect on the last year."

Hitting the streets, Tet for foreigners residing in Vietnam means various things. For Stephen McGrath, living in Ho Chi Minh City, "Tet is a cultural event that perplexes and entertains me, but no-one ever knows when it is until a week beforehand," he said jokingly.

Paula, a long-time ESL teacher in Vietnam said for her, "Tet is the one true break I get all year. I cherish every moment and usually spend half in the city with my Vietnamese friends and half traveling somewhere outside of Hanoi."

As vendors try to stock up and sell as much as they can, many foreigners make plans to travel and get as far away as they can.

"I get as far out of the city as possible. It's the one time every year that I don't want to be in the city, I want to be out and traveling. It's so quiet it is lonely so I always grab a bag and hit the road. For me, Tet is my only chance for a big trip every year, so I take it," shared NGO worker Jason.

Adam, who is married to a Vietnamese woman said, "Tet is obviously a very important holiday. It's family time. We do all the traditional activities and it has been a remarkable cultural experience for me. Local food, local people, local everything. We go out to the countryside and celebrate with a huge and loving family."



Foreign friends enjoying a traditional Tet meal with a Vietnamese family
One resident of Hanoi for over 15 years griped, "As much as I love Tet, it is also the time of year where for two months, the price of anything and everything goes up. From a business standpoint, Tet is terrible but once the day arrives, and my wife's family gathers, I realize that I love it. It's really my Christmas now."

For the plethora of teachers living and working in Vietnam, many refer to it simply as, "Tet is for travel."

Tet's meaning can also change drastically as it did for Eric Burdette, "My first four Tet's used to mean time off for continuous partying... However, over the past two years I have courted (and recently married) a Vietnamese woman. Now that I have a family in Vietnam, Tet has a completely different meaning. After over five years of living in Vietnam, being accepted into a family and having a real home during Tet makes me feel like I truly belong here."



Eric’s Family in Vietnam during Tet holiday
Tet is a time for family and friends and has different meaning for different people. It is a holiday that like Christmas, both Vietnamese and foreigners have come to embrace and celebrate. It is East meets West. It is a time of joy for all. One embassy worker I spoke with simply said, "It's Tetmas." And this is Tet through the eyes of some foreigners

Candied Lotus Seeds Recipe

Monday, January 26 ushers in the Year of the Ox. With all that’s been happening on the economic and political fronts, seems like Lunar New Year is a bit eclipsed this year. How can the Year of the Ox trump the Dawning of the Obama Era? But perhaps the ox (think water buffalo) -- a beloved patient, work animal in Vietnam -- can lend us its characteristically stable and persevering attitude. Bye bye get-rich-quick schemes a la Bernard Madoff. Hello nose-to-the-grindstone work to patch things up and rebuild.

 I thought about various oxen qualities as I experimented with candied lotus seeds earlier this week. Sweetmeats are a must-have at Tet, Vietnamese Lunar New Year. I can’t stand the stuff sold at the markets as they tend to be laden with food coloring and tasteless. As busy as I was this week with an arduous four-day photo shoot for a new cookbook (more on that soon), I carved out time to fiddle with candying lotus seeds, one of my favorite sweetmeats. They’re a little buttery and lightly sweet. A touch of vanilla lends a nice floral note to them.

Recipes from Viet cookbooks suggested soaking the seeds for hours before cooking them and then repeatedly coating in sugar syrup, much as you would for French candied chestnuts (maron glacee). But I have a neat trick for cutting down the cooking time for the seeds. 

Chicken and Bamboo Shoot Noodle Soup Recipe

The other day, I soaked and cooked a bunch of dried bamboo shoot (mang kho) and squirreled them away for Tet so that I could simmer some with pork hocks. But the chilly winter weather got to me today and I defrosted a batch of the prepped bamboo shoots to make bun mang noodle soup, a Vietnamese favorite; bun refers to round rice noodles (think bun rice noodle salad bowls!) and mang refers to bamboo shoot. I looked in my cookbook library and found Vietnamese recipes that paired bamboo shoot with chicken, duck and pork hocks (called bun mang ga, bun mang vit, bun mang gio heo, respectively).  Chicken is the fastest and easiest to make as it is readily available at any supermarket. It’s also less expensive than duck and lighter than pork.

Vietnamese food is often quite simple yet seemingly complex. That's the beauty of this preparation -- just a few average ingredients coming together for spectacular results. People have asked me what makes bun mang taste good. The answer has less to do with the protein than the quality of the bamboo shoot; for tips on buying and preparing this standard Asian ingredient, read “How to Cook Dried Bamboo Shoot.” The dried bamboo shoot lends its golden hue and naturally sweet-savory flavor to the broth for bun mang. Normally, wood ear mushroom is added for contrasting color and crunch but I love to drop in some reconstituted shiitake mushrooms so that the soup is super laden with umami goodness.  

Tet Food, Festivals and Fun

Get ready to ride the Tiger. The Lunar New Year celebration is on Sunday, February 14. For the next three weekends, Vietnamese communities all over the world will be kicking off festivities for Tet Nguyen Dan (that’s our official name). Take it all in as Tet is like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Yom Kippur, and Easter all rolled up into one. The build up and fervor can be overwhelming as people try to square away all unfinished business before the New Year commences. Repaying debts, cleaning the house, and xong dat New Year greetings are some of the ways that Vietnamese people address Tet superstitions and ensure good luck for the next twelve months. Tet gift baskets to your superiors work too!

At Vietnamese markets, delis, and bakeries, you’ll find an array of colorful candies, sweetmeats, cakes, cookies, pickles and sticky rice cakes called banh chung and banh tet. The cakes are must-haves for Tet. They are essentially supersized dumplings wrapped in banana leaves and boiled for hours. They may look like abobe bricks or door stops, but don’t be put off as they are really delicious when made well

The Lazy Person’s Guide to Celebrating Tet

One of my resolutions for 2011 is to take things a little easier. Many of us were exhausted by the events of last year. I have been recovering from the wicked virus that’s been going around. Hopefully by this coming Thursday – the first day of the Lunar New Year – I will have vanquished that cough to start anew. I’m physically tired from all the coughing and light wheezing. I am also behind on many projects and need to catch up. I neither have the energy nor time to do my usual Lunar New Year blow out. Nevertheless, I want to ring in the year with some kind of fanfare. 

That’s the genesis for this post. It is for people who, like me, are interested in accomplishing more by doing less. Feel free to add your ideas!

Ponder the animal: Cat or Rabbit?
To prepare yourself for the New Year, think about the animal that’s coming up. It’s a nice thematic approach to framing the months ahead. Say goodbye to the Year of the Tiger. For 2011, you can choose between the rabbit or cat.

Raid your -- or better yet -- Mom’s freezer

Leading up to Thursday, I’ve gone through my freezer to cull a few goodies that I stashed in there over the months gone by. Lunar New Year is a time for relaxation. You are not supposed to slave in the kitchen. In the past, people spent weeks preparing food in advance so that during the holiday, they would set the stuff out for a wonderful repast.

They banked their prior cooking efforts. My modern answer to that is: the freezer. I found the following in my deep freezer leftover from Asian dumpling making sessions:

• Shanghai radish cakes
• Steamed char siu bao
• Steamed curry chicken bao
• Nepalese lamb momos

During Christmas, my mom gave me two Tet sticky rice cakes (banh chung); the above photo is of a cut up one. The square-shaped, adobe brick like savory cakes are a must-have for the holiday. My industrious mother made about two dozen last summer.

She froze them and when the time was right, offered them up to each of her kids. What a loving mother! She basically saved my butt. In years past, I’d spend 1 1/2 days prepping and cooking banh chung rice cakes. It was really fun but I am glad to thaw and refresh (read: reboil) the ones that mom made.

Make a few easy things
Over the weekend, I made a batch of Vietnamese pickles. They’re a family favorite called dua gop and combine cauliflower, carrot and red bell pepper. It’s a recipe from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen that’s easy to put together, and within 24 hours, the tangy crunchy vegetables are ready to eat. For Tet, Vietnamese people love to have pickles to cut the flavors of hearty foods such as the sticky rice cake.

I’ll be caving in to simmering pork in caramel sauce for a kho (claypot dishes). It’s another Vietnamese Tet tradition. If you’re southern Viet, it’s thit heo kho trung, pork and boiled eggs in a savory sweet caramel sauce with coconut juice. My parent’s northern Vietnamese inclination is to simmer pork riblets in caramel sauce (suon kho) until they’re nearly falling off the bone. I’m a sucker for the pork riblets for Tet. They keep for days and improve with flavor!
Tet Supertitions
There are so many things that people think they must do to guarantee a good year ahead. I try to keep things fun and easy. I was raised on Tet superstitions such as making sure that the first person to enter your front door will offer you good luck for the year. (I'm getting my husband to knock on the door first thing on Thursday!) I decorate with some blossoms or pots of chrysanthemums. Then I take the first day of the new year off for relaxation and positive thinking.
Simon below asked about taboo Tet foods. He asked, "Does anyone personally object to serving or eating duck, squid, or shrimp at Tet?" Some people think that ducks are stupid (really?) and the dark ink from squid is seen as dirty. I don't know about the shrimp.
Many Viet people cooking whole chickens and slaughtering a pig for Tet. Such sacrifices seem like a joyous one for people who traditionally have labored so hard for the rest of the year.  All of these things are up to the believer.
Any thoughts or food superstitions for the new year? Have you heard of any? Do you practice some superstition or avoid certain taboos?

Make it a group activity
Gold is the preferred color for this holiday. If I get up the gumption, I’ll deep-fry something into a luscious, prosperity-laden golden crisp. It will be something simple, like a shrimp and pork wonton or the Trader Vic campy classic, crab Rangoon. I’ve taught my husband to fill and fold wontons quite well so I can get him to pitch in.

Or, maybe I’ll make dumpling dough and filling and take them to Jeff’s house for a group activity. We can roll wrappers and make boiled jiaozi dumplings. Then we'll tumble them in a lots of soy sauce, vinegar, and chile oil. 

Whether it’s the Year of the Cat or the Year of the Rabbit, I hope these tips help you to have a less stressful and restorative celebration.