Bánh Cáy, Cốm Hộc

Bánh cáy and cốm hộc: two faces of time.

Bánh Cáy in Nguyễn Village

Matchbox-sized pieces lean against one another. The surface is speckled with small orange-red dots on a sandy-brown ground, like cáy, small fiddler crabs, scattered across the mudflats of the northern delta. From that resemblance comes its name — bánh cáy, a traditional cake from northern Vietnam.

The “cáy” inside the cake is made from glutinous rice. Rice is mixed with deep-red gấc pulp and steamed. Under the steady blows of a wooden pestle, the rice becomes smooth and pliant. It is pressed into a wooden mold, left to cool, then cut into thin strands and dried in the sun.

Besides the red cáy, there is also a yellow one, tinted with gardenia fruit. These cáy can be kept for months. When the cake is assembled, they are dry-roasted until crisp.

Bánh cáy also calls for hoa nẻ and pork fat. Glutinous rice is dry-roasted until the grains burst open and bloom, then pounded into a fine powder—hoa nẻ. Strips of pork fat are cut slender and long, cured in sugar. Dried tangerine peel, shredded coconut flesh, and roasted peanuts are indispensable. 

Malt syrup, sugar syrup, and ginger simmer together. When the syrup is ready, everything goes into the wok. Two spatulas stir and turn with a dry rustling sound. The mixture is pressed into a mold, the sweet pork fat hidden at its center. Toasted sesame seeds are scattered over the surface. A wooden roller moves back and forth, packing it tight. The scent of ginger, sugar, and roasted grains hangs in the air.

The people of Nguyễn Village in Thái Bình still remember the first person to make bánh cáy. Nguyễn Thị Tần was the wet nurse to the crown prince during the reign of Emperor Lê Hiển Tông in the mid-eighteenth century. When the prince was imprisoned, she made the sweet to ease his hunger. After returning home, she passed the recipe on to the villagers. Her statue stands in the village communal house, where she is still worshiped.

For more than two centuries, the people of Nguyễn village have continued making this labor-intensive cake.

Nguyễn Thị Hằng has been making bánh cáy for thirty years. She recalls: “In the past, my parents made just a few molds of cake for Tết. Only in our generation did it become a trade we could live on.”

She still remembers how her parents would cut one mold of cake into two large pieces and wrap them carefully in old newspaper. Only when it was time to eat would they unwrap it, slice off a few pieces, then wrap the rest again and set it aside. Back then, bánh cáy could keep for several months.

Hằng laughs. “My parents only made it for Tết or as a gift. It wasn’t something you could eat every day like now.”

In Hằng’s courtyard, conversation hums. Around a round table, the elderly men and women of Nguyễn village laugh and talk. On the table, a plate of bánh cáy is already half gone. An elderly woman nods in approval. “This batch is good. Soft and pliant, and the cáy is crisp.” An elderly man adds, “I think the cáy should be left longer, let it dry completely, so it crisps properly when toasted.” Inside the house, Hằng gives a small nod.

As bánh cáy became a trade, the time and rhythm of making it also changed. Machines now pound the rice, mix the ingredients, grind the powder, and cut the cakes. Packaging becomes more careful and hygienic.

Yet the people of Nguyễn village still shape the cakes by hand, to feel their suppleness and density. Whatever can be sped up is sped up, but the part that determines the flavor is not.

It is a cake for those who know how to wait.

Notes:

– gấc: red spiny gourd, a local squash whose pulp gives a reddish tint.

Cốm Hộc in Phan Thiết

On the ancestral altar at Tết, blocks of cốm hộc are stacked carefully, their flowered ends turned outward. Wrapped in colored paper, each is finished with a tinsel flower. Under the light, the strands glimmer faintly.

She sits at the dining table. A block has just been taken down from the altar. She removes the tinsel first, then unwraps the paper. The pale ivory square releases the fragrance of glutinous rice and ginger. The popped grains press closely together, here and there revealing a glint of candied pineapple or a strip of golden-brown raisin. She cuts a piece and places it in her mouth. Airy, sweet, with a faint heat.

When she was little, her family made cốm hộc every year. Her mother would go to the market for popped glutinous rice and begin cooking the sugar syrup as soon as she returned. Once the syrup thickened, her father mixed it into the rice. The whole family gathered around the wooden table. One person ladled the mixture into the mold; another pressed the wooden lid down firmly. The mold was hollow at both ends. Once compacted, the block slid out, square and solid. 

Once pressed, the blocks were arranged on trays and carried out to dry in the yard. Every household in the neighborhood set out a few trays. The scent of toasted rice and sugar drifted lightly in the sun. Inside the house, the sisters sat together cutting colored paper to wrap the sweets, shaping paper flowers to paste onto one end. She remembers ruining the paper and the flowers countless times, being scolded again and again, and still laughing.

She nibbles at the piece of cốm. The popped grains are crisp and fragrant, like the kind her mother used to buy from Phú Long.

Back then, the kilns in Phú Long burned all day. Large cast-iron pans sat over red wood fires. Hot sand churned in the pans. When the rice was poured in, the crackling began almost at once. The grains burst open, white and weightless. The sound of popping rice carried across the area, along with the sweet scent of sugar syrup.

There was a time when cốm hộc could be found in Phan Thiết market on ordinary days. Now it appears only as Tết approaches. The kilns in Phú Long are lit only in the last month of the lunar year. Many families no longer make cốm hộc. Wooden molds and iron pans lie unused.

She looks at the block on the table. She buys it only near Tết, to place on the ancestral altar. After the offering, she brings it down and eats it alone. Her child does not like cốm hộc. Says it is too sweet.

One day it may be her child’s turn to light the incense and then take a block down from the altar. If there is still cốm hộc.

mlefood – Minh Lê

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