The US Meat Export Federation partnered with a local college in Ho Chi Minh City to celebrate a Lunar New Year tradition in Vietnam: share US pork with underprivileged families and promote US spare ribs to retail partners. With support from Indiana Soybean Alliance and Indiana Corn Marketing Council, USMEF collaborated with Saigon Tourist Hospitality College (STHC) to celebrate Vietnam’s Banh Chung Cake Festival.

Vietnam’s Banh Chung Cake Festival. Photo courtesy of the US Meat Export Federation

Banh chung is a traditional Vietnamese cake that is closely associated with the Lunar New Year. Its main ingredients traditionally include glutinous rice, mung beans and pork belly. The cakes are typic­ally made prior to the new year, as fam­il­ies gather to wrap and cook them together. Banh Chung symbol­iz­es grat­it­ude to ancest­ors and hope for prosper­ity in the year ahead.

The festival was held on STHC’s campus and included a competitive element, as teams were judged based on their presentations of the chung cakes and decorations of Lunar New Year feast trays. The competition attracted students from multiple disciplines such as culinary arts, baking, and restaurant and hotel management and consisted of 33 teams, with six members per team. The feast trays were then delivered to underprivileged families through the Spring of Love charity program to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

Melissa Brown, the US consul general in Ho Chi Minh City, provided opening remarks and participated in wrapping several chung cakes. Travis Stahl, Agricultural Attaché of the Foreign Agricultural Service in Ho Chi Minh City, also participated in the festival.

“We promoted US pork spare ribs for use in the chung cakes because ribs have good market potential in Vietnam,” said USMEF ASEAN Director Sabrina Yin. “We are promoting US pork’s consistency, versatility and quality to the trade and consumers through events, education and promotion.”

Contestants received instruction on identifying and selecting suitable pork ribs, trimming and processing techniques, and methods to maintain tenderness and flavor during long cooking times. During the training session, participating teams were also guided by experts on how to debone US pork spareribs, as well as the proper techniques for wrapping Chung cakes. The finished cakes were described to contestants as representing a culinary fusion between Vietnam and the US.

USMEF also sent chung cakes prepared at the festival to retail partners that had expressed interest in US spare ribs, including Lotte Mart, Mega Market and GoFood.

“We’re working to develop interest and demand for spare ribs among high-end retail customers of our partner importers and distributors,” Yin said.

Source: US Meat Export Federation