Cake wrapping leaves: A supporting character in specialties but with a respectable history

Vietnamese people have a habit of using a variety of leaves to wrap food, not only to ‘wrap’ but also to help create a special flavor for the dish.
Vietnam has many delicious cakes that have existed for a long time and have become a culture and a specialty of the region and the nation. Along with those traditional dishes, dong leaves – banana leaves are an indispensable companion to create a unique and irreplaceable flavor.

Traditional cakes The tradition of using leaves to wrap food of the Vietnamese people is shown most strongly and clearly in traditional cakes. Banana leaves are the most popular, but sometimes they can be replaced with coconut leaves, dong leaves… but the trend of using natural leaves for wrapping cakes remains unchanged. No matter how deep the history of Vietnamese cakes, the leaves have accompanied them for such a long time. The oldest can mention banh chung. Right from the first appearance in the legend, it was also introduced as a cake wrapped in dong leaves. According to the development of Vietnamese cuisine, in turn, other leaf wrap cakes gradually appeared, not limited to a certain region but almost any cake, specialties of any region will be wrapped in leaves. . From far away, from gai cake, honey cake of the North to Hue cakes such as Nam cake, filter cake. In the Southern region, we have banh ú and little cakes that are also associated with the leaves picked in the garden. Spring rolls, spring rolls, spring rolls All dishes made from meat and to be eaten for a long time, gradually eaten like spring rolls or fermented meats like spring rolls are wrapped with banana leaves. This is an old way of doing things, because banana leaves have the ability to keep fresh very well and can help preserve food in conditions where there is no refrigerator. The spring rolls and spring rolls that we often prepare during Tet holidays are wrapped in leaves. On the other hand, some spring rolls, small rolls such as spring rolls, sweet rolls… are also meticulously wrapped with banana leaves into pretty small packages. It can be seen that, even if it is a large size of spring rolls or tiny pieces of spring rolls, grandparents do not change their ways because of a word “convenient”. They still take the time to carefully wrap and tie each spring roll, one by one. Sticky rice and rice dishes No matter what kind of rice is sticky rice, what color, served with beans or coconut or savory dishes, sticky rice with banana leaves is almost never changed. Currently, there are many places that use styrofoam boxes to store, but the image of sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves – lotus leaves is so familiar that we all prefer such traditional sticky rice shops. Snacks, snacks Not only in traditional cakes, spring rolls or sticky rice dishes. Grandparents also used leaves in “seafood” dishes, such as pandan tube cake, baked sticky rice, banh xeo, and molded cake… In addition, do we have a “theorem”? The official is: any dish eaten with mam, rattan basket, that dish must be lined with banana leaves such as bean vermicelli, cakes… Along with the long history of cake culture in Vietnam, the leaves have contributed significantly to creating a delicious and close taste. It has wrapped and protected the cake to keep the perfect color, smell and taste that very few people notice.