🎋 The Lunar New Year Table – What We Eat When We Come Home

🎋 The Lunar New Year Table – What We Eat When We Come Home

In the Mekong Delta where I was born, Tết doesn’t begin with fireworks.

It begins with the scent of nếp thơm rising from a steamer.
The sound of mothers gently tying banana leaves around bánh tét.
The quiet hum of a house being scrubbed clean, and the humbler rhythm of a heart preparing to return home.

Every year, just a few days before the new year, my husband and I pack our things and head south — back to the place where rivers split the land, where our parents still live, and where the kitchen never sleeps.

 
🏡 Tết Means Going Home – and Cooking Like We Mean It
In our corner of the Mekong Delta, Tết is not just about celebration.
It’s about coming home.

It’s about arriving to find your mother already rinsing củ kiệu in a large basin, your father smoking his third cigarette of the morning while keeping an eye on the bánh tét pot outside.

There’s no big announcement. No grand reunion.
Just quiet gestures — a hand placing a plate in yours, a smile over a simmering pot — that say everything.

At Tết, we don’t just eat to celebrate.
We eat to remember where we belong.
 
🍲 The Table That Grew With Us
Our Tết table never changes much, and maybe that’s why it means so much.

Thịt kho hột vịt: Pork belly and eggs braised in coconut water, sweet and savory like memory itself
Canh khổ qua nhồi thịt: Bitter melon stuffed with minced pork — because we believe eating bitterness now means sweetness will follow
Dưa món: Pickled vegetables, crunchy and bright
Bánh tét: Glutinous rice with mung bean and pork, wrapped tight in banana leaves and boiled through the night
Củ kiệu tôm khô: The tang and salt of tradition, passed down by calloused hands
There’s no menu.
Only rituals — small and tender — that have been repeated year after year, even as we’ve all grown older.

My husband and I often sit beside each other at this table in silence.
Not because there’s nothing to say, but because we’re full in a way that words can’t hold.

💛 The Quiet Things We Carry
One of my favorite moments is not the meal itself —
but standing in the kitchen with my mother the day before.

She’ll hand me a small job — cutting dưa món, washing banana leaves — and we’ll talk about the price of pork this year, about neighbors, about nothing important.

But in between those casual words, I feel everything:

The warmth of being trusted with old family recipes
The joy of being home, not as a guest, but as a daughter
The quiet comfort of sharing this with the man I love, who was born just a few rivers away
Some dishes carry flavor.
Others carry belonging.
 
🌙 What We Eat When We Come Home
Tết in Vietnam isn’t just marked by dates on the calendar.
It’s marked by smells in the kitchen, laughter under a tin roof, the clink of chopsticks against porcelain bowls that have seen decades.

It’s marked by the comfort of knowing that no matter how far you go, there is always a place waiting with warm rice, sweet broth, and the sound of someone calling your name.

So when we say “chúc mừng năm mới” over a table of familiar dishes —
what we really mean is:

“Welcome home.”
“Sit down.”
“You’re loved.”
“You’re safe.”
“Eat.”
 
Next up:
📖 A Taste of Childhood – Vietnamese Snacks That Grew Up With Us