Rice cooking competitions (Thi thoi com)
During the temple's weeklong festival the first week
of Tet, villagers hold culinary competitions: cooking ordinary rice in water,
steaming sticky rice and making rice cakes.
Contestants cook in the open air while in a bamboo
boat floating on the village pond. Charcoal, the usual fuel, is prohibited.
Instead, each competitor receives some dried sugar cane, which burns only with
difficulty. The challenge increases if it is windy and raining. Each contestant
must set her rice pot in exactly the right place to take advantage of the wind
and avoid extinguishing the fire.
The competition begins precisely at dawn. Hundreds
of boats are tied up along the pond bank since as many as 200 young women may
participate.
After a salvo of drumbeats, competitors step into
their boats, bringing along cooking tripods, rice pots, some damp straw and
fuel. They row to the centre of the pond, make a fire and wash the rice.
A second salvo of drumbeats sounds, punctuated by
three final beats, the competition starts. The cooking may be done in one pot
after another or by using all pots al the same time. The tiny, light boat sways
with the competitor's every movement, keeping the craft stable while cooking is
like performing a circus act. The competitor who finishes first wins, but
quality also counts. People from many villages watch from the pond bank,
mothers who have trained their girls for months impatiently wait for the
results of their efforts. Other women take advantage of the occasion to look
for prospective daughters-in-law who are both good cooks and can also face
difficulties with calmness.
Contests for boys and girls villagers in Chuong
Village of Ha Tay Province organise similar competitions separately for boys
and girls. Female participants must cook rice on the ground while
simultaneously carrying a six-to seven-month-old baby from another family on her
hip. She must console the infant when he or she cries. At the same time, she
must prevent a toad from jumping out of a chalk circle drawn around her. The
competition is all the more difficult because the spectators, especially
children, take every opportunity to tease the baby.
The contest for boys is no less rigorous. Each boy
must stand ready with all the necessary items (rice, water, matches and
firewood) on a light boat moored the pond bank. At a given signal he paddles
with his hands to the opposite bank, where a row of pots is placed on tripods.
He must stay in his unmoored boat while cooking the rice on the bank. The least
loss of balance tosses him over into the water.
In Tich Son Village of Vinh Phuc Province, a cooking
competition takes place on the morning of the fourth day after Tet. The
finished rice must meet particular criteria of taste and consistency.
Contestants use two pots. First they boil the rice in a copper pot over the
fire. Once the water boils, they pour both the rice and water into an earthen
pot and cook the rice over charcoal until done.
