Lunar New Year and traditional sweets

Very sorry that I didn't update my blog for almost a month, my sincere apology!
Sometime we have different priorities in life, but in 2013, not promise but I will try to post something new, interesting, especially during our Lunar New Year, which is only few weeks away from now!

Tết that we call our New Year by Lunar Calendar!
This year is a year of snake, I don't like snake and no one like it, I don't like either the number "13" but it could be my lucky number! Let's hope!

Tết is always very special time for everyone, especially for kids, it's simply big holidays with a lot of freedoms: free from school's home works, free to eat, to play, to gamble, free to do many things that they are probably not allowed to do, if not Tết. But for us, Tết is a big burden now! The preparation could take away from us a lot of efforts until the last moment - New Year Eve or Giao Thừa. So some time we have no longer good feelings about this traditional celebration. "Tết is coming, I'm tired!", that sentence we may hear more often nowadays.

             A stall selling "mứt" in Bến Thành market. The choice seems less and less.

However Tết still brings to us sweet memories...time to go back home, to gather with loved ones, to share different untold stories and to cheer another new stage in our life.

Talking about Tết I never forget the traditional sweets (or simply "mứt"). This's something that we should have at home during Tết. I still remember when I was just a young boy, around 15 year old, I went to market to buy ginger, coconut. sweet potato...to make "ginger sweets" (mứt gừng), coconut sweets (mứt dừa) by myself ...without any instructions from my mother. "Mứt" probably originated from our neighbor as I notice that in China, or some other Chinese speaking areas in South East Asia, like Chinatown in KL (Malaysia) or in Bangkok, people over there have something very similar.

           Most favorite mứt: coconut with different flavors: green with panda leaves, yellow - durian. 

Mứt is fruits stirred in sugar for hours...until it's ready, i.e either dry or wet as jam. The wet sweets (or jam) - we usually call "mứt dẽo", not only sweet, but sticky and a bit sour! This's a kind of preserved fruit which is very popular everywhere around the world! What kind of fruits can be preserved for "mứt"? It should be a long list! Most popular are coconut, ginger, winter melon, pineapple, water chestnut, sweet potato, lotus seeds, tamarind, soursop, star fruit,...etc. There was a time some mứt made of tomato, carrot, plum, dried pineapple. green papaya...were very popular, but now I couldn't find anywhere in the market. 

             Mứt made of ginger (left) is also another favorite for Vietnamese during Tết.  

These days the demand for Mứt is getting down and down, if before we could see the big varieties of mứt in the stall, now only the most popular as coconut or ginger. I didn't see other mứt as sweet potato or soursop, very few tamarin... it seems that people now have other choices: imported cookies, candies...or it could be another reason - mứt is too sweet and not good for health?    

             Mứt made of coconut - different colors - different flavors!  

Before during Tết each family should have at least 4 or 5 kinds of mứt - in oder to fill up the traditional lacquer box with mứt. Being a kid, I loved to do that - to fill up the box and to enjoy the colorful mứt display in that nice box. My mother used to teach French to Koreans, one day she got a gift from them - a very nice traditional black lacquer octagonal box for mứt, inside with 5 red compartments, special lacquer smell, it was a treasure toy for me in my childhood. Now that box has gone after several decades. I bought a new one but it seems we didn't use much, even during Tết.

        I bought this box for mứt few years ago to replace the old one which stayed with us for decades.

            Tasty, sweet mứt dừa! (coconut sweets)

              Another kind of coconut sweets - made of young coconut, the texture is softer.  

             Yellow coconut sweets with durian flavor - good combination. 

            Ginger sweets (mứt gừng) - a bit spicy, sweet, flavorful ...a "must" for Tết. 

             Some other choices - not very typical for mứt as kiwi but good to try!  

  A market vendor with three homemade wet mứt.  

The image of this vendor in the market, selling a small portion of different kinds of wet mứt, reminds me the old good days when every family tried to do at home several kinds of mứt in order to treat guest for New Year, to give to loved ones as gift or just to be happy with this sweet preparation. Sometime they tried to create their signature mứt - a combination of several fruits: star fruit with tomato, green papaya, pineapple...very delicious! 

Nowadays people seems busy, they rather buy from the market...so the flavor of mứt has been changed, they may look nice but the taste is no more delicate...the lack of human touch and feelings!    

              Three"wet" mứt made of ginger shreds, kumquat and gooseberry.  

              Another colorful mứt made of jelly - crispy from the outside, sweet, quite flavorful. 

              Dried persimmon (hồng khô) is also a popular mứt for Tết. 

 Only few weeks left to another new year, it could be a moment that we look back to the past, to remember what have been done, what's not and to look to the future with wishes and dreams. So I wish  everyone who read my blog over the past 2012 - to enjoy many sweet moments in this "snake" year, to achieve huge success in business and in life...and don't forget to check my blog - from time to time! Thank you!