How special is the traditional Quang Nam Tet tray?

On the first days of the new year, every family, regardless of region, prepares the best dishes and rice trays to wish for a lucky new year. So are the people of Quang Nam. For the people of Quang, the Tet tray is an expression of filial piety, remembering the merits of ancestors, a reunion meal, and also the culinary quintessence handed down through many generations.

A decent Tet tray of Quang Nam people.

The Quang Tet tray is carefully prepared in the early mornings of the first three days of the Lunar New Year. Before the whole family gathers and enjoys the tray together, the family representative will respectfully light incense, read offerings and offer offerings to pay homage and invite ancestors to have a meal first. Therefore, a Tet tray cannot be overstated, but it must be thoroughly done from the form to the taste of the dish, to be able to fully express the meaning of a Tet feast.

Tet tray offering incense to ancestors before having meals together of Quang people.

Different from the typical Northern Tet feast consisting of whole boiled chicken; Chung cake; fried spring rolls (in the inner region often called ram); frozen meat; stir-fried vegetables; mushroom soup; bamboo shoot soup; cucumber pickle; Gac sticky rice; fish fry; jam and fruit… In Quang Nam, a traditional Tet feast must have sliced ​​boiled pork. Some houses will provide cooked pig’s head and carefully and beautifully decorated.

Cakes in Quang Nam New Year’s tray will be sliced ​​Tet cakes and ash tet cakes, cakes made from glutinous rice and soaked in ash water of leaves such as sesame leaves (sessame), leaves… It is considered a special cake of the Quang Nam New Year tray because it will give off a very special and fragrant flavor of the leaves.

Wrapping Tet cakes – a familiar image in Quang at the end of the year.

Unique ash cake from Quang.

Another dish that is also very unique on the rice tray of Quang Nam New Year is grilled pork roll. This spring roll dish is made from minced pork marinated with spices, lemongrass and lemongrass leaves, wrapped with banana leaves into a cube with sides of 5-8cm. Basically, this dish is a little bit sour, but there is no skin and the sour taste is also lighter. When eating, this dish, instead of being eaten raw, will be grilled over embers.

The reason for this dish is because Quang Nam New Year is often hot, the food is difficult to preserve, this method can preserve meat for 3-7 days. Not to mention, when grilling meat, the meat is fragrant and sour, fleshy, very strange to eat.

The pork spring rolls are carefully tied just waiting for the day to be grilled.

Some other dishes in Quang’s Tet rice tray include a plate of stir-fried vegetables, a plate of well-salted pickles, a baked rice paper (baked rice cake) just enough for the Quang people to eat with banh tet, and a plate of rice paper. The bowl of bitter melon soup is packed with meat like the Tet festival of the Southern people.

For chicken dishes, Quang Nam people do not display whole chicken or cut chicken, but prefer shredded chicken mixed with laksa leaves and fragrant salt and pepper. A plate of shredded chicken, a plate of eye-catching golden-braised sea fish with turmeric are must-have dishes for a solemn Tet tray.

The dish of palanquin and salted carrots is delicious to relieve boredom for the meal.

A plate of shredded chicken with laksa leaves and delicious salt and pepper sauce of the Quang people.

For the people of Quang, the Tet tray is also the spirit of the people here. With the sincerity and generosity of the people in the Central region, despite many natural disasters or difficult lives, the Tet tray offered to ancestors, family meals together, and hospitality for visitors must be full of meat, fish, decent cake.

Today, everything is easier in life in all regions, a Tet tray can be ordered in advance for the restaurant to ship to the place. But for the people of Quang in general and the countryside of Quang in particular, they still devote themselves to the New Year’s dishes as a thank you for life and preserve the identity here.

Đăng bởi: Trần Hưng