...Culinary Adventures in the New Year

The Tet holiday in Vietnam, better known as the Lunar New Year, is truly a time for celebration here. The night before the new moon is much like Christmas Eve in the west in terms of the energy that builds up before hand. Stores are overflowing with flowers, markets brimming with vegetables and fruit, and shiny red and gold trinkets hang from push carts lining the street. The main street downtown is turned into 500 meter display of flowers, flags, signs, glitter and lights. People shop fervently for large feasts to be prepared on the first day of the New Year, deliver gifts to friends and family, close offices and stores. And finally, like at home in the U.S., people disapear inside their homes, leaving the streets blissfully quiet.
At home, Vietnamese families (those who aren't Christian) celebrate return to the hearth of Ong Tao, "the kitchen god," who a week earlier had left to visit with the Jade Emperor. Ong Tao usually lives in the family's kitchen, above the kitchen altar, and looks over the family's activities during the year. He had left to issue a report to the emperor on the families activities. His return is a cause for celebration, if not concern (have we been naughty or nice?)
The day after Tet, the first day of the lunar new year, the mua lan dances begin, as "dragons" dance around from store to store to bless the business for the year (for a small fee of course). A Chinese tradition, the merry makers come from Cholon in District 5, Saigon's China Town. They are followed by a band of musicians, blessing the house with a wild ritual dance, drums, cymbals and merrymaking. The long cloth dragons writhing down the street are of course filled with three or four young men jumping up and down inside.
And most of all, the first day of lunar new year, people eat. Yesterday, I was treated to two feasts on the Lunar New Year. At the first, the traditional sticky rice cake - banh chung - was eaten, along with chicken, squid, egg rolls and rice. The sound of loud crunchy caused me to look across the table, and watch a thin little man devour the foot of a chicken. He worked his way up each long toe, crunchy on each, and then arrived at the metatarsal, at which point he bit even harder, and managed to grind it up well enough for swallowing.
At the second feast, that night, consisting of fish, egg rolls, vegetable soup and beef, there was one dish that worried me a great deal. Gelatin cubes were piled on a plate, each containing various small bits of food of many textures and colours. Because the Vietnamese are incredibly gracious to guests, and always want to make sure you have enjoyed each delicacy, they saw I had abstained, and explained that it was in fact, a delicate way to prepare pigs' ears. The polite nod from me was my ineffective way of saying "no thanks," which was not enough to dissuade my gracious host from picking up a gelatin square with his chopsticks. I eyed the square, which at first was held suspended over the center of the table for a moment and which then floated slowly in my direction. It could have gone to my left, or to my right, into bowls of my friends, but unfortunately it landed square in mine.
Gnarled bits of white flesh and unidentifiable black matters were suspended in the gelatinous delicacy, and despite having been told many times it is extremely rude to turn down food from a host, I had absolutely no intention of eating it. At the first possible moment, as invisible as possible, I picked up the pig's ears with my chopsticks and put them in the bowl of the person eating to my left!
The Tet festival continues for a week, each day traditionally involving different activities. Overseeing it all are the three folk gods - the wise man Ong Loc (wealth) Ong Phuc (happiness) and Ong Thu (longevity) - who sit on most family altars. And perhaps most beloved of all is Ong Dia, the slightly overweight, happy and generous man not so different from the laughing buddha.