Bundles of Gratitude Keep Bakery Busy

Celebrating Tet, the lunar new year, without banh chung is like Christmas without a tree or Thanksgiving without a turkey. The 6-by-6-inch delicacy, painstakingly stuffed with five layers of sticky rice, mung beans and pork, all wrapped inside banana leaves, is the one dish that most defines the weeklong holiday.

And in Westminster, the Hoang Huong Bakery is renowned for its banh chung. Customers often wait in line for more than an hour to buy one, five, even dozens of the cakes. In a two-week frenzy, the small Hoang Huong Bakery makes 5,000 cakes. They take at least 20 hours to prepare, so the shop is a study in ordered chaos before the holiday, celebrated by Vietnamese, Chinese and some Koreans, which officially begins Wednesday.

“It’s strenuous, all made by hand, and we don’t make a lot of money for it,” bakery owner Linda Nguyen said. “But it’s what makes Tet. It’s part of our culture.”

Merchants came with their trucks and dollies to pick up large orders. Customers cut in line. They whizzed in and out, carrying box loads of the cakes, wrapped in red bows, each costing $7.50.

“Chuc mung nam moi!” or “Happy New Year!” one customer hollered as he left the store with his order of six banh chung.

The workers didn’t bother to look up. They are coming to the end of two weeks of rare silence and careful, detailed work. The 12 employees work at least 10 hours a day in an area the size of a big house kitchen, surrounded by huge kettles, stainless-steel tables and four stoves. It’s hot and cramped. The aroma of steamed banana leaves, like stale seaweed or kelp, wafts out to the small parking lot.

While one employee rinsed huge bowls of rice and beans, another cleaned the banana leaves and cut them into pieces a foot long and about 6 inches wide. Eight of them will eventually cover the cake.

Beside him, four slight men took turns pouring the rice, beans and pork, steamed for 12 hours, inside a wood mold on top of the leaves. After the layers were stacked and the cake wrapped, they pounded the cake with their fists, cramming it into the 2 1/2-inch-tall mold. Another man, sweat running down his face, poured hot water into a giant steamer where the cakes were then cooked for 12 hours.

They were then stacked between slabs of wood, topped with anything heavy--50 pound boxes of peeled split mung beans, a 24-pound box of rice flour.

Nguyen, who is nine months pregnant, has worked overnight to tend to the boilers, making sure there’s enough water at all times so the cakes don’t dry out.

“I’m baby-sitting already,” she said jokingly, as she shifted in her chair to tie red bows on the cakes.

In the corner, Khanh Nguyen, 46, of Garden Grove quickly but precisely inserted lucky red envelopes and then wrapped the cakes in plastic. Her small, bony fingers ran along the top of the cakes to make sure there were no creases. Her dark-drawn eyes inspected the banana leaves for any spots.

“You have to make it smooth on the top and make sure there’s four pointy corners,” she said. “If it wrinkles, no one will buy it. They see it as bad luck and inappropriate to give as gifts.”

The cakes are based on a legend in which a dying king who would choose among his sons for a successor depending on which made the most tasty and meaningful dish. His youngest son, Tiet Lieu, didn’t think he would be crowned because he was the poorest and couldn’t afford the ingredients to make a lavish meal. He went to bed and in his dreams, an old man instructed him how to make banh chung, which is square, representing land, and banh day, made with the same ingredients but round, symbolizing the sky.

The son presented the king with both cakes, saying that the love of his parents are limitless like the sky and the land.

“The children give it to their parents to recognize their caring, affection, reciprocity,” said Kim Son Vo, a professor at Cal State Fullerton who teaches Vietnamese culture and language. “It’s a symbol of gratitude.”

Many of the Hoang Huong Bakery workers said they learned how to make the cakes in Vietnam, where tradition calls for all households to make their own cakes as gifts for the lunar new year.

“We’re not making a lot of cakes over here because we only have a Vietnamese community here,” said Lan Luu, 42, of Westminster, who has worked at the bakery for a year. “In Vietnam, the whole country is celebrating.

“It reminds me of Vietnam. Making these cakes brings me into the Tet spirit. We work this hard once a year and it’s worth it.”