Why should you eat glutinous rice wine on New Year’s Eve?

A little bit about the day Lunar New Year

Tet Doan Ngo (also known as Tet Doan Duong, Tet killing insects) is a New Year’s day held on every 5/5 (lunar calendar). Doan Ngo is the beginning of midday (Doan: opening, Ngo: midday).

This is also one of the big holidays of the year because in the 5th lunar month, the weather starts to be very sunny, this is also the time of season change, so many diseases arise. Therefore, folk often have a custom to prevent diseases as well as launch the capture of pests that harm plants.

A tray of offerings for the Lunar New Year includes: glutinous rice wine, seasonal fruits depending on the region, types of sticky rice, tea…

Typical culinary features on Dragon Boat Festival

Every year on the Lunar New Year (May 5th of the lunar calendar), Vietnamese families prepare many dishes to “kill insects”. Some indispensable dishes on this day such as ash cake, glutinous rice wine, seasonal fruits…

During this great holiday, depending on the region, people will have different special dishes. For example, in the North, people will use duck meat dishes while the Central and Southern regions prefer to use banh troi. In addition, there is another food that is very popular from North to South, which is sticky rice and wine.

According to the old concept, the 5th lunar month is a hot summer time, prone to disease outbreaks, everyone should eat foods that are easy to digest and cool, and ash cake is one of such foods.

For people in the North, floating cake is a specialty often seen on the real Korean New Year, while for Southerners, water drifting tea is a familiar dish that “kills bugs” on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month.

Also according to the concept of “killing insects” to cure diseases, duck meat becomes a dish often mentioned during the Lunar New Year, due to the effect of nourishing blood, detoxifying and cooling the body.

Why eat sticky rice wine on this occasion?

An indispensable dish in the Lunar New Year is sticky rice and wine. According to folk beliefs, sticky rice can kill parasites and pathogens in the body.

According to folklore, it is believed that eating rice and wine on this day (especially on an empty stomach) will make the “worms” in the body because of the alcohol that drunken it. Depending on the characteristics of the region, rice wine will have very different forms.

In the North, people often process rice wine from sticky rice, which is a very popular ingredient in the Northwest. In the Central region, people often press the rice wine into chunks while in the South, people will round the rice wine into handfuls.

However, no matter how it is processed, the sticky rice wine in particular or the rice wine in general on this day has one purpose, which is to kill insects and prevent diseases.

The Dragon Boat Festival has long been a typical cultural feature of our country. Not only means prevention of epidemics and natural disasters, this is also a festival honoring the unique culinary beauties of Vietnam and also an opportunity for foreign tourists to better understand the customs of the country. ta.

According to Law Newspaper