Five-color steamed glutinous rice

A tray of five-color steamed glutinous rice during competition festival.

Visiting Muong Lo (Mường Lò), a land in the West of Yen Bai (Yên Bái) province in first days in Spring, tourists may not only be in deep passion of peaceful landscapes in Northwest mountains and forests, but also enjoy charming dances, popular foods which are considered to be specialties of the Thai in Muong Lo such as bamboo-tube rice, five-color steamed glutinous rice.

Both traditional and modern values, which express conceptions of universe, yin-yang doctrine, and noble humanity, are all converged in five-color glutinous rice. "Khẩu cắm lanh" is the red glutinous rice symbolizing for desire; "Khẩu cắm lăm" is the purple symbolizing for the populous and rich earth; "Khẩu cắm hương" is the yellow symbolizing for prosperity; "Khẩu khiêu" is the green symbolizing for greenness of forests and mountains in Northwest; "Khẩu nón" is the white symbolizing for pure and loyal love.

To have delicious and glutinous rice, procedures need strictly obeying from leave selection for dyeing to steaming. The ingredient prepared for making glutinous rice must be Tu Le rice with big and pure grains; this is one of the four most famous kinds of glutinous rice in this area. Four kinds of leaves used for making colors of green, red, purple, and yellow are carefully selected to make sure they are not too tender or too aged. This rice is then clearly washed and steamed with brook water taken from brook-head in Tu Le commune. Once colored solution is available, glutinous rice is soaked for about 10 hours and then let dry. The rice is then cooked in a traditional steamer which is called Mo Lung (Mỏ Lửng) - Tay Lung. This steamer is oval, made of either body of palm tree or aromatic wood, which is whittled to have two holes at both ends, the upper part is covered with a lid. The lower part is lined with a bamboo wattle, each steamer may hold over 1kg of rice. Steaming process must have steady fire. Once ripening, rice becomes glutinous, strongly tasty, and will not be sticky in your fist no matter how hot or cool it is.

Ripening steamed glutinous rice is then served onto plates or up to different ideas with five different colors: green, red, purple, yellow, white). These five colors are joined together to make a Bauhinia flower-shaped tray of glutinous rice, which symbolizes for the doctrine of yin and yang, five basic elements. At the same time, it expresses desire for love and compassion, loyal love, respectfulness to the beloved of the Thai people in Northwest.

D.Loan (Collected)