Hoai Niem Mut Tet (Vietnamese Sweet Dishes served in Lunar New Year), a book featuring homemade mut in Hue style served by Vietnamese families during the Tet holiday, has been released by the Vietnam Women Publishing House.
Instructions to make about 30 kinds of traditional sweets for Vietnamese Tet were presented in the book, including sugar-crystalized ginger, preserved orange peels, preserved winter melons and lotus root, as well as kumquat jam.
The book by two Hue-born cuisine specialists, Nguyen Thi Phien and Do Thi Phuong Nhi. The book is published by Vietnam Women’s Publisher and publicly available in January 2021.
The book includes recipes by the authors who use simple and lively language to express their knowledge and feelings about Vietnamese culture and lifestyle through food. Photos of mut are also included.
To complete the book, the author Nguyen Thi Phien has spent most of her time researching to find out the best recipes for Hue specialties, especially the Hue-styled sweets as the indispensable sweet during the Vietnamese Tet.
She also passed the knowledge on her daughter Do Thi Phuong Nhi, who is the co-author of the book. They were also the co-authors of Hue Delicious Dishes, which received good reader reviews.
For each kind of sweet, the authors described minutely the ingredients, the preparation steps, the requirements of the products. They also shared the tips to make the product look more eye-catching.
Not only is the book a good guide for recipes of various kinds of sweet, but it is also a link between now and then. The description of each kind of sweet which embeds the sentiment of the authors is like a story they share.
The authors wish the readers of the book would spend some time learning to make the sweet for Tet and other delicious dishes so that the next generations could have beautiful memories of the love and coziness of their family.
Two authors, who work for tourist schools and cultural centres, have offered cooking courses for many Vietnamese and foreigners.
