Vietnam is the cradle of wet rice civilisation in Southeast Asia and rice is the archetypal image of wet rice civilisation.
Rice is life and is deeply rooted in Vietnam’s cultural heritage. It enters people’s lives as daily food, in festivals, in wedding parties, in songs, in paintings and in poems. The process of rice cultivation itself brings communities together.
The rice cooking competition is one of many festivals in Vietnam related to rice. A special rice cooking competition now can be seen in Xuan Non Hamlet’s festivals in Luong Quy Commune in Hanoi’s rural district, or in other localities such as Xuan Phuong Ward in Hanoi’s Nam Tu Liem District.
The competition is a meaningful activity as it encouraged farmers, especially women, to take more responsibility in their traditional work and training soldiers in days of old to skilfully manage themselves in difficulties, as well as to be patient in their fighting.
The competition, also a culinary performance, is often organised after the Tet festival.
According to the village’s elderly, in the third century BC, when Vietnam was invaded by Chinese people, Saint Giong, who is considered as one of Vietnam’s four immortal genies, rose up and fought the enemies.
When Giong marched past Luong Quy Commune, many local young people joined his fight. However, the enemies’ violent onslaught prevented the soldiers from having enough time to cook to fill their stomachs.
The elderly then devised a way to cook rice while running to save time, with rice being cooked in the open air.
After the country was liberated, three of the local young people who helped Giong defeat the enemies were granted a title of “Royal Highest Generals” by the king and approved the organisation of rice cooking competitions every year. A festival dedicated to the Royal Highest Generals is organised on the sixth day of the second lunar month every year.
Within the competition, materials and tools such as pots, paddy rice, wood and bamboo are prepared with fixed volumes, without fire or water. The ten-person teams are required to make fire, wash the rice, and fetch water from about 500 metres away from where the competition takes place.
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The competition includes four teams, which are called giap, coming from different parts of the commune. Giap refers to those coming from the same family clan or from the same hamlet. Contestants can be women or men who wear traditional attires, whose main colour must be red, which incarnates the yang, or prosperity and well-being.
After a big drumbeat, the contestants poured paddy rice into big mortars and pounded it until it is unhusked totally. Then they sieve it until they get white rice. The process only takes five minutes.
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After that, while each member from the teams goes away to fetch water, other members concentrate on one of the most important and difficult stages, which is to make fire from two sticks of dry bamboo.
“We have had to practise for the competition a month before the festival takes place, because it is not easy to make fire from bamboo without a lighter. Generally speaking, we have our own techniques,” says a contestant by name of Nguyen Minh Duc, who is a local high-school student at Nam Tu Liem District.
Duc, who is an excellent student, says he is happy as having selected for the competition. “Many other young people want to join, but they cannot meet the organising board’s requirements,” he says.
After water is fetched and fire is made, the main stage of the competition begins, which requires big concentration.
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A person holds a rod with a fresh rattan or bamboo frame fixed on one end, on which there is an earthen pot, while other people hold wood bars with fire under the pot to cook it. The people are not allowed to drop the pot on the ground. The entire cooking process must be implemented above the ground.
Duc, who holds the rod for his team with his both hands, is walking slowly around the ground. He says that his task seems simple at a glance, but it necessitates “special techniques” because he has to control the pot in a harmonious way so that the rice will not be burnt or overdone, while other team-mates follow him holding bamboo bars on fire under the pot.
“We must walk very slowly with the same even steps. Bamboo or wood must be used to fire in the most effective way, because if you use it too much, there will be shortage of it. Meanwhile, fire must always be kept, otherwise the rice quality will be influenced. If it is windy, it is difficult to make good rice,” Duc says.
After 20 minutes, his team wins the competition among big applauses. His team has succeeded in cooking well-tasted rice which will be used to devote to the village’s tutelary genies, who are three generals helping saint Giong to defeat the enemies.
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Other versions
Rice cooking competitions were also seen in some other localities in northern Vietnam, with different competition conditions. For example, in Hanoi’s Nghia Do Town, there used to be a rice cooking competition in which sugarcane was used as fuel to cook rice. Contestants had to eat the sugarcane and then use their dregs to boil rice, which was also cooked in the air.
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In another case, in Thanh Hoa Province’s Tu Trong Village, rice competition is organised when it is rainy and windy, in a coracle floating on the village pond or lake, with chewed sugar-cane dregs used as compulsory fuel. The biggest challenge is the wind and rain, which forces contestants to set their rice pots in precisely the right place to capitalise on the wind direction, while preventing the fire from being extinguished. The competition can see the participation of hundreds of people.
Contestants must be strong and skilled ones. After some drum-calls, they quickly jump into the coracles, bringing along rice, pots, tripods and sugarcane, and row offshore to a spot at which they stop and begin striking fire and washing rice. Each coracle houses a team of four people, with one pot of rice.
Challenges begin when the coracles rock on the water, making it very hard for contestants to keep their balance and the pot. The scene looks like a circus performance. The contestant finishing first with well boiled rice wins. Their rice will also be used as an important offering to the village’s tutelary genie.
