Monday 15 October 2012

Xoi la chuoi - A favorite dish of Vietnamese

In most Vietnamese childhood memories, banana leaves create a popular and beloved image as they can be used as rings in wedding games, to make umbrellas for children to protect themselves from sudden rain and covers to wrap sticky rice for kids. Now, the rustic leaves have come to the city in a sticky rice shop near you.


Xoi la chuoi (sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves) is a favorite dish of Vietnamese – Photo: My Tran In most Vietnamese childhood memories, banana leaves create a popular and beloved image as they can be used as rings in wedding games, to make umbrellas for children to protect themselves from sudden rain and covers to wrap sticky rice for kids. Now, the rustic leaves have come to the city in a sticky rice shop near you.


In the countryside, most households have banana trees near their homes. Therefore, people use leaves as bags to wrap products. The elderly use them to keep their betel, women use it to wrap pork they buy from the market, men use it to wrap banh chung or banh tet (glutinous rice cake filled with green bean paste and fat pork) during Tet holidays, kids often draw their dreams on leaves and then float them on the water while older students weave leaves’ strings as rings. And of course, they are used to wrap sticky rice in loads to carry along the roads by women or in booths in front of schools.


Not only do they set off the colors of sticky rice such as red of xoi gac (sticky rice made with momordica seeds), purple of xoi la cam (sticky rice made with cam leaves), white of xoi man (sticky rice served with meat, salted shredded meat, Chinese sausage, pork pasta) or yellow of xoi bap (corn sticky rice), banana leaves are also considered an environmentally-friendly product.


Therefore, the rustic leave has come to the city, not only in small glutinous rice shops, booths of vendors, but also in luxury restaurants. The greenness and coolness of banana leaves chills hot food a little and on the flip side they keep food warm as well as creating the fragrance for sticky rice. That’s the reason why some people have given up using plastic boxes or nylon bags as they are not environmentally-friendly products.



Like banh mi thit (meat bread), as a popular fast food, xoi la chuoi (sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves) can be eaten by students in the classroom, workers in construction site, staff in offices, some young people also eat it while walking on the street.


Sticky rice is made in diverse types from various materials to meet the varied tastes of customers. Customers can choose salted or sweet snacks and can enjoy xoi with grilled chicken, pork, pork paste, vegetables, seaweed, sesame or peanuts.

If you are interested in exploring Vietnam travel you can visit Vietnam travel company, Halong cruise, Halong Bay, Halong tours site to know further attractive places. 
Source: en.baomoi

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