The humpback chung cake is a beautiful cultural feature of the Tay peopleIn every Tay family, the green glutinous chung cake is the most popular type of rice cake during Tet (Lunar New Year). The ingredients for this cake include: glutinous rice grown in the mountains, mung beans, black pork and fresh dong leaves, all sourced from the forests. The distinctive green color of chung cake comes from soaking the rice in turmeric leaf water, creating an eye-catching green hue and a unique aroma. Wrapping green chung cake is also a very elaborate process. The baker spreads the ingredients along the length of the banana leaf, then rolls it up and bends both ends of the leaf to create the characteristic hump shape. As a result, the green glutinous chung cake is usually easy to peel and retains its original flavor when eaten.
In addition, the black humpback chung rice cake is one of the outstanding specialties of the Tay people in the highlands. What makes black glutinous chung cake unique is its distinctive black color, achieved through a very special preparation process: charcoal ash from the Nuc Nac tree. The Nuc Nac tree, a type of tree that grows in the forest, is harvested by locals at the end of the year, burned to ash, ground into a fine powder and mixed with upland sticky rice. Charcoal from the Nuc Nac tree not only creates a unique black color but also gives the cake its distinctive salty taste, replacing salt, which was very scarce in the past.
Besides rice, beans, and pork, the black humpback chung cake has one major difference from the green humpback chung cake: its preparation method. The pork from carefully selected free-range pigs is thinly sliced and marinated with finely ground pepper and cardamom, adding an alluring aroma to the pastry. Black humpback chung cakes are also wrapped in fresh dong leaves and are usually boiled over a wood fire to preserve the cake’s distinctive flavor. When the cake is cooked, the fragrant banana leaf wrapping, combining with the sweet taste of mung beans and pork, creating an indispensable dish on the Tay people’s Tet (Lunar New Year) offering table.
Both the green and black glutinous chung cakes showcase the skill of Tay women in every step of the process, all wrapped by hand with precise and beautiful curves, demonstrating the dexterity of Tay women. Specifically, the humpback chung cake can be wrapped with four or five strings, depending on the purpose and ritual of the offering ceremony. The way of chung cakes are wrapped also carries deep beliefs and cultural values, such as the humpback chung cake, which is wrapped with five strings when used for offerings and to predict the family’s fortune in the new year.
