Southern traditional cake festival celebrates Hung Kings’ death anniversary

With the theme “Embracing Southern Flavor”, the event in Bình Thuy district will feature 250 booths and 100 artisans.

Highlights will include a traditional cake competition and a showcase of cake-making techniques and types of traditional cakes. One corner will introduce the craft of making Thuan Hung rice cakes, a national intangible cultural heritage. At the opening ceremony on Thursday, there will be a ritual of offering traditional cakes to the Hung Kings and demonstrations of making banh xeo (sizzling rice pancake), banh khot (deep-fried shrimp pancake), banh it tran (sticky rice dumpling), and banh bo (steamed rice cake).

Nguyen Minh Tuan, Director of the Can Tho municipal Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, says the festival is an opportunity to honor traditional cake artisans and promote folk culture to the younger generation. It also aims to encourage creativity in making southern traditional cakes.

"Artisans will collaborate to make a record-setting large sizzling pancake, a popular cake in the southwestern region. Minh Cong, who has created innovative designs for traditional cakes, will also attend the festival,' said Tuan.

The Southern Traditional Cake Festival has attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors in its previous editions and has become a highly-anticipated annual event for people in the Mekong Delta.