Happy Sunday to all of you! If you read my newsletter last week I want to share the good news that my oven is fixed (and for a very reasonable price, too!) so I am sailing through the weekend with a fully-functioning kitchen. But I don’t have baked goods on my mind: The recipes and stories I am most enthralled by right now are the ones we shared this week for the Lunar New Year holiday on Tuesday. These recipes are all focused on the Vietnamese celebration of Tết, and the package was conceived, built, and edited by the marvelous writer and editor Thao Thai. I’m so privileged to have these stories on Kitchn and today I want to turn this newsletter fully over to Thao’s introductory essay.

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We’re in a sea of crimson. From the silk áo dàis threaded with gold, to paper envelopes that flicker from one person’s hand into another’s pocket, we swim in vibrance. And though everyone is in their best clothing, we’re loud, we’re jovial. There’s no formality today — only a sense of ballooning joy, the moment before a deep exhale. It’s Tết, Vietnamese New Year, and we’ve found our way to each other. To comfort, community, and the things that tie it all together: storytelling and food.

“Tell us again,” someone commands. And then, another person regales the group with a story. Some talk about their first days in America. Others talk about the War, always a grim specter in our imaginations. Uncles recall their teenage exploits with gleeful hand gestures, their impersonations so piercingly accurate that we’re on the floor, rocking with laughter.

It’s late winter in 1993, and the last dredges of a cold front scrape down the Florida coast. Wind ruffles the spiky leaves of palmettos and the ocean waves curl onto the shore, briefly dampening the sand before they retreat. My family is three years into our new home — America — and the world looks marginally more familiar than it once did. We’re celebrating this year, in a big way. At my grandparents’ house, we gather our friends and family, most of them Vietnamese. Kids spill into the tiny wire-fenced backyard, catching lizards in my grandfather’s garden. In the kitchen, our guests tear plastic wrap from platters of xôi mặn (sticky rice studded with jewel-toned sausage and ribbons of egg) and bánh Tết (rice cakes wrapped in banana leaf). Aunties sneak peeks at each other’s dishes, wondering whose will be devoured first. (It’s always my grandmother’s legendary xôi.)

As usual, I’m hiding under the long card table, next to the box of mứt, a traditional selection of candied fruits set out for guests. I’m 8 years old, with a huge gap in my teeth and spidery limbs that never arrange themselves quite right. I reach up for a tangle of dried coconut and, my favorite, bubbles of candied lotus seeds. All that sugar makes my teeth hurt, but I can’t stop eating. That is, after all, what Tết is for.

In Vietnamese, rather than saying you’re about to “celebrate Tết,” you would say “ăn Tết,” which translates to “eating Tết.” It’s no surprise that such a phrase exists within a culture that honors food so fully, creating moments of celebration even within the everyday meals. But Tết food is special. It’s the food of glee, each laden with meaning. From pickled onions that cut through the richness of rice dishes, all the way to thịt kho (caramelized, slow-braised pork and eggs), each food is a part of the spiraling history we contribute to. So when we talk about eating the new year — consuming prosperity and hope — we’re talking about a kind of longing. A need to find our way back to a homeland, which for some has felt so achingly distant this past year of the pandemic.

For an immigrant, home is more than a dream. It’s a hunger so deep that a mere whiff of your mother’s signature dish can cut through all the other identities you offer the world, sending you back to a moment of pure vulnerability. Like how it feels to hide under a card table as a gap-toothed kid in itchy clothes. This past year, home has felt complicated for some. When I open my browser and read another gutting instance of AAPI hate, I want to gather my family up and spirit us across the ocean, to safety, or the impression of it. But America is our home, as much as the Vietnam of the past. So we stay; we cling to each other. To exist this way — with a foot on either side of the great divide — is to feel perpetually transient. To hunger in the most private parts of your soul.

Continue reading Thao’s story: The Deep Longing of Tết and the Homecoming of the Vietnamese Community