Supper Club: Vietnam
Welcome to Supper Club, a peek at other countries and their food customs, music, and traditions. For the holidays, we are taking a look at Vietnam and how they celebrate Christmas.
Surprisingly, their traditions aren’t too different for our own customs, here in America, except that Christmas Eve is more celebrated than Christmas Day. Due to the former colonized of France, they still carry a lot of French customs as well. They adorn their doors with wreaths, their tables with colorful flowers, a big nativity crib scene or ‘creche’, and often give presents of food in place of things. A bûche de Noël is a popular gift and Santa is called ‘Ông già Noel’ in Vietnam, which translates to Christmas Old Man.
Children in Vietnam look forward to ‘Ông già Noel’s visit and put their shoes in front of their doors on Christmas Eve, expecting to have their shoes stuffed with goodies from Santa on the morning of 25th December. Treats like oranges are also a hit.
On the eve of Christmas, throwing confetti is a unique tradition that the people of Vietnam take part in. I love the idea of celebrating this way.
A sample menu of a Christmas Eve dinner:
A big bowl of Chicken Soup
Goose or Roasted Duck
Pork Buns – I used this recipe for the images below.
***As an added bonus, for some leftovers, from the pork bun filling, I sautéd the filling to freeze for a later date, to add in with rice noodles or make lettuce wraps. So delicious!
All the ingredients and flowers for this post were found at Whole Foods.
****As an added bonus for my readers, Whole Foods is giving one reader and a friend a chance to win groceries for a year! Just click here for all the details and to enter. Good luck!!
Thank you to Whole Foods for sponsoring this series. I look forward to sharing a new series of traditions in each Supper Club.
