During the Lễ – Tết holidays, each region often holds cultural and culinary activities or unique family customs and traditions. Let’s explore the custom of eating duck on the Đoan Ngọ Festival of the Central Vietnamese people with the Cooking Tips section.
1. Dishes on the Duan Ngo Festival
Every year, on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month, people eagerly participate in cultural activities during the Duan Ngo Festival. Traditionally, on this day, besides fruits, the dishes from different regions also vary.
People in the South are very familiar with the appearance of dishes Banh Tro, Banh U and cups of sticky rice wine, along with two popular fruits in the summer (plums, lychee,…) displayed on the ancestor worship table.
However, the offerings of the Central Vietnamese people are quite different from those of the Southern people.
For example, the sticky rice wine of Central people is very different from the sticky rice wine of Southern people. Central people usually wrap the sticky rice wine in a banana leaf containing three square sticky rice balls, which are very fragrant and sweet.
Before eating, they remove the outer layer of banana leaf, arrange the sticky rice balls in a bowl so that they are square, and then pour the rice wine over them. After waiting for a day, that sticky rice wine is then brought out to eat and is often accompanied by crushed sticky rice.
2. The custom of eating duck meat on the Duan Ngo Festival
One of the dishes that cannot be missing on the offering table of Central people during the Duan Ngo Festival is roasted duck or boiled duck.
Typically, Southern people do not prefer to eat duck meat at the beginning of the year, including on the Duan Ngo Festival. Because eating duck meat symbolizes getting rid of bad luck and wanting to be luckier. However, Central people have a different belief.
They believe that from the 5th day of the 5th month onward, ducks begin their season. At that time, the ducks become fatter and have tastier, firmer meat, with no unpleasant smell. Therefore, most Central households choose to buy and prepare various dishes from duck meat.
The custom of eating duck meat on the Duan Ngo Festival is still maintained in some localities in other regions (besides Central Vietnam).
3. Is eating duck meat during the Duan Ngo festival good?
When mentioning dishes made from duck meat, you might immediately think of familiar names such as: duck porridge, duck salad served with a bowl of ginger fish sauce, or herbal duck stew still steaming from a clay pot, for example.
On the Duan Ngo festival, when the weather is hot (belonging to the Major Heat season), with high temperatures, many people often choose dishes made from duck meat to balance heat, nourish the body, and more deeply, to uphold traditional spiritual beliefs.
4. Other customs on the Duan Ngo holiday
If you live in the countryside, they often wait exactly at noon (the hour of Ngo) to gather and pick medicinal leaves. Because at that moment, the sun shines with the best rays of the year and gathers the best yang energy.
Therefore, the medicinal leaves picked around that time are often used to treat skin diseases and digestive issues.
Moreover, on the Duan Ngo holiday, some people following old customs also dye their fingernails and toenails,… or hang wormwood to ward off evil spirits. However, the old custom that is still maintained today is the habit of picking herbs and bathing in herbal water on the 5th day of the 5th month.
If you are from the city, they often have the custom of buying medicinal leaves from vendors who bring them from the countryside. At this time, the medicinal leaves are chopped and sorted into separate types, so buyers only need to choose and buy their favorite flavored leaves.
On the Duan Ngo holiday, they dry them out, then wrap them in a bag before placing them in the family medicine cabinet. If someone in the family is sick, they take the herbs out to use.
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This article may help you answer the question why do we eat duck on the Tet Doan Ngo holiday and the customs surrounding the Tet Doan Ngo holiday. Hope this article provides you with useful information!
