Sunflowers

13th March 2022

(music)

Liz: Hello and welcome to Bread and Thread, a podcast about food and domestic history. I’m Liz

Hazel: And I’m Hazel. We are two friends who studied archaeology together and love history, and making and/or baking things inspired by history. We normally start by talking about what we’ve been doing recently, before we get to our main topic, so what have you been up to?

Liz: I have made progress on the Godzilla, as always

Hazel: Amazing, how goes it?

Liz: It’s good. I’m still working on the ocean because

Hazel: Ok

Liz: The thing is, it is 12 by 18 inches, so it’s taken some time

Hazel: It is the thing about counted embroidery, it does take significant time

Liz: There are five stripes of ocean. One of the stripes used a whole skein of embroidery floss

Hazel: Wow, ok

Liz: But also after last episode I have started working on a gansey

Hazel: Amazing

Liz: For my sister. It’s purple and it’s custom, I picked out some cables for it based on her suggestion rather than just using a premade pattern, so that’s quite exciting

Hazel: Amazing, bespoke gansey

Liz: Bespoke gansey

Hazel: (laughs)

Liz: Hopefully will not take as long as the Knives Out one did

Hazel: Oh wow, yeah

Liz: It is not as cable hell

Hazel: Figure you’ve earned a bit of a break from that

Liz: Yeah, but also I really like cabling? I’m a glutton for punishment

Hazel: (laughs) I know what you mean when it comes to taking on very complicated creative projects

Liz: A third thing

Hazel: Oh?

Liz: Actually a third thing and a fourth thing, I have made some soap for my mum

Hazel: Ooh

Liz: Independent of Mothers’ Day coming up, it’s just the fact that it needs to sit for a month after making it. But it’s these, I didn’t colour them

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: Because she wanted a fairly plain one, so it’s just these little oval, creamy coloured, floral scented bars with lavender heads in

Hazel: Oh nice

Liz: And it’s very fancy. It feels slightly like hotel soap, but that’s what was requested, so

Hazel: Hotel soap is fancy

Liz: We just have very different tastes in soap, I think

Hazel: In soap!

Liz: And Nick and I have also started making some honey beer

Hazel: Oh wow

Liz: It’s been busy at Blake House

Hazel: Different from mead?

Liz: Imagine mead but with hops

Hazel: Yeah, ok, I gotcha. That sounds good

Liz: It smells good, it smells really good. The kitchen smelled of fish food when we were boiling the hops

Hazel: (laughs)

Liz: But it turns out it’s very fun to sit on the floor next to a big bucket of water and dissolve honey into it

Hazel: I bet

Liz: And I make no apologies for this, I felt like a gremlin

Hazel: It’s all kicking off at Blake Towers

Liz: It is. What about you? You’ve regained access to your supplies

Hazel: I have, yeah. I haven’t been quite as productive, but I am now home and can access all of my projects, which is amazing. I finished the little handwarmers I was making for my teachers on placement, and I gave them to them, it was nice. What else have I been doing? Oh, so a while ago I planted some seeds, which is a bit of a departure for me, because I don’t often garden, even though I like it, but I’m trying to grow some dye plants this year, following on from my experiment last year of growing woad, which didn’t work out very well, because I planted them all in a very comfrey-infested area, and comfrey just aggressively takes over everything, so I don’t know if the woad is still there or not

Liz: (laughs)

Hazel: We’ll see, find out I guess, but I am currently trying to grow some dyer’s greenweed, which gives a very strong yellow colour

Liz: Ooh

Hazel: Not green, but you can use it with woad to make green, of course, so I’m trying to grow some dyer’s greenweed. The only thing is, I’m not sure what it looks like in its tiny form so I’m just hovering. I can’t really weed them yet, just in case I accidentally pull out the plant, so that is gonna be ongoing, and if it works then I will definitely be dying with it this summer. It’s a biannual, I think, and I might try some other plants, we’ll see how it goes. I wanted to try growing some madder, but apparently that takes 5 years to become established, and

Liz: That’s a fair while for something so small

Hazel: It is, yeah, and it’s pretty small roots as well, so I don’t know. I’m not sure if I’m gonna be here that long, really

Liz: I guess you could try propagating it in an egg tray or something?

Hazel: Yeah, but then it needs to be…it’s a ground plant, it’s a root

Liz: Ah ok

Hazel: So it needs its space, really. It’s not

Liz: I was just thinking of the top part

Hazel: It’s not a growing in a pot plant, the root is the part you actually dye from, so that’s gonna be on the back burner for a bit, I think, but eventually, some day in the future, I will have my beautiful dye garden with all of the things. Speaking of which, I probably talked about this last year, but the fabric that I dyed last year with apple bark, I’m finally in the process of making that into a skirt

Liz: Ooh

Hazel: And I’ve discovered using a fork to make pleats, which is honestly the most genius

Liz: Using a fork?

Hazel: Yeah, you get a fork, and put your fabric between one of the prongs of the fork, and you twist it, and you take it out, and you get perfect pleats. It’s great (laughs)

Liz: Never heard of that, that’s genius

Hazel: It is absolute genius. I’m attempting to make a pleated skirt using that fabric, so I will document that process as it happens, but I’ve only just got up to starting at the moment, so I’m gonna try and get the pleating done tonight, and then I’ve got some really nice shell buttons that I’m gonna use, because I haven’t got a zip and I can’t be bothered to go and get one, so I’m gonna try and make it button up, and maybe do some embroidery, and we’ll see how that goes

Liz: Very swanky

Hazel: Yeah. Don’t tell anyone that it’s a bedsheet

(both laugh)

Hazel: It’s not any more

Liz: I didn’t know until you said, on this podcast that people listen to

Hazel: I know, maybe I shouldn’t have said, ‘cause my rule of thumb is that if you can’t tell I made it out of a bedsheet, then you don’t get to snark about having made clothes out of a bedsheet

Liz: It’s a good source of big fabric

Hazel: Exactly, and this is…I haven’t…I’ve made a few things before, but I’m still relatively new to making clothes, so it’s just great to have something to practice on that otherwise we weren’t going to use, ‘cause it’s just an old one that we had that had a stain on it, so I chopped that bit off and dyed it. That’s what’s going on. What are we gonna talk about today?

Liz: This is one that was requested over on the Bread and Thread tumblr, and I thought it was kind of topical at the moment

Hazel: Ok

Liz: So I wanna talk about sunflowers

Hazel: I think it’s a good time to talk about that

Liz: Seasonally, geopolitically, they’re just very appropriate at the moment

Hazel: Yeah, yeah. And also very interesting and have many applications

Liz: They’re pretty

Hazel: (laughs) They are, they’re one of my favourite flowers

Liz: End of episode. Sunflowers, there’s a bunch of different species, under the genus Helianthus

Hazel: Good name

Liz: Which is a modern name for them that comes from the Ancient Greek words for sun and flower

Hazel: Aww

Liz: So sunflowers are called sunflowers

Hazel: That makes sense

Liz: Shockingly

Hazel: The Greek name is quite pretty though

Liz: It is, but it is unfortunately one of the “we need to give this a scientific name, what would the ancient Greeks have called it if they’d had them”

Hazel: Oh, I see, it came after calling it a sunflower. That’s funny

Liz: They were actually domesticated 3-5000 years ago, it’s hard to be precise, around the southern US and Mexico

Hazel: Ok

Liz: Seems to have been for the seeds, which are delicious, to be fair

Hazel: Definitely. Do they have a lot of nutritional value?

Liz: They do actually. They’re a really good source of omega-3 and 6

Hazel: Oh wow

Liz: Especially omega-6, which is apparently…it’s classified as an essential nutrient, because it’s one of the ones that the body can’t make

Hazel: Ah

Liz: And it also helps cholesterol

Hazel: Ok, yeah sunflower spread is marketed as cholesterol reducing, right?

Liz: Yeah, it increases the HDL and lowers the LDL, which basically means, when you hear about good and bad cholesterol, it’s got lots of the good kind, and helps get rid of the bad kind

Hazel: Oh right, ok. And is also delicious

Liz: It is delicious! I will get back to that

Hazel: (laughs)

Liz: The seeds were grown by various indigenous groups, and brought back to Europe by European invaders in the 16th century, and very quickly realised that they could use them for oil

Hazel: Ah. How do they extract the oil from the sunflower seeds? Is it a pressing?

Liz: It is pressing, yeah,

Hazel: Ok

Liz: And there’s actually three kinds of seeds from the Helianthus annuus, which is the annual sunflower, the kind that you associate with the word sunflower

Hazel: Ok

Liz: Although the Jerusalem artichoke is also a sunflower

Hazel: No way!

Liz: Yeah

Hazel: (laughs) That’s amazing

Liz: Which is not a food that I’ve ever had, but it pops up a lot on cooking shows

Hazel: Ok. Wait, is that different from a normal artichoke?

Liz: Yeah, a Jerusalem artichoke is a tuber

Hazel: Oh

Liz: It’s also called things like the sunroot or earth apple

Hazel: No way

Liz: That’s a little but further north than the Helianthus annuus

Hazel: I’m looking at pictures of them now and they do look like little sunflowers. That’s amazing

Liz: So you can also get root vegetables from the same genus, which is quite fun

Hazel: Yeah that’s quite cool. There’s one that gives them the alternative name of sunchokes

Liz: Sunchoke sounds like a vampire disease

Hazel: (laughs)

Liz: But Jerusalem artichokes are actually really good for dietary fibre. When things have added fibre, like processed foods, that often comes from Jerusalem artichokes

Hazel: Oh wow, so they’re like fancy potatoes

Liz: Kind of. You can even ferment them

Hazel: Oh my gosh

Liz: There’s a spirit produced in Germany called topinambur, which just means Jerusalem artichoke, apparently

Hazel: That is so incredibly niche, and I love it

Liz: You can get Jerusalem artichoke brandy

Hazel: I know you don’t drink, but I pledge to try that for you

Liz: According to EU rules, to be sold as topinambur branntwein (pron.brant wine), or topinambur branntwein (pron. brant vine), probably, or Jerusalem artichoke brandy, it must be made exclusively from Jerusalem artichokes

Hazel: Makes sense

Liz: Or at least 38% alcohol by volume

Hazel: Great. So where can one get ahold of some?

Liz: I would assume Germany, ‘cause that’s where it’s made. If you add other things, like something called tormentil, and currants, you get a kind of schnapps, Jerusalem artichoke schnapps

Hazel: Oh, I’m seeing one website that sells that, which is indeed in Germany. “Honest, eathy, and tart”. That’s how I’ve been described

Liz: (laughs) I’m saying nothing

Hazel: (laughs)

Liz: But Jerusalem artichokes were also pushed as a biofuel crop for a while, which is quite cool

Hazel: Ok, wow

Liz: But going back to Helianthus annuus, which is, as I say, the main sunflower that you think of, it became a big thing to grow for oil under the Russian Empire

Hazel: Ok

Liz: So much so that it became the national flower of Ukraine

Hazel: Oh wow, so that’s where that comes from

Liz: Which was a part of that empire

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: And now produces 15 million metric tons of sunflower seeds a year

Hazel: Oh my goodness

Liz: Which is equivalent to about 25 tons per square kilometre

Hazel: That’s an un…my brain cannot grasp that amount

Liz: It’s a lot of sunflower seeds

Hazel: So many

Liz: Again, mostly for oil, even now, which is mostly used either as a cooking oil or for margarine

Hazel: Ok

Liz: Which I think makes the best margarine for baking with

Hazel: Ah

Liz: Purely just my own personal tastes, but we always used margarine for cakes growing up, ‘cause my mum can’t have dairy, and I found that 100% sunflower made the cakes that tasted nicest to me

Hazel: Ok, interesting. Not really baked much with margarine. I used to do it with my grandad, because I think it’s just how he was used to baking, but I’m gonna have to give it a go

Liz: Like I say, I don’t have any evidence for it being better

Hazel: (laughs)

Liz: But I prefer it, and it does have a nice yellow colour that you don’t get as much with other margarines

Hazel: Yeah, I do like sunflower spread

Liz: It did become a big oil crop in North America in the 20th century as well

Hazel: Ok

Liz: As just a general thing of margarine is cheaper to produce than butter, and then, later on, margarine is healthier than butter, so we will grow all of the sunflower seeds everywhere we can. But you can also just eat sunflower seeds

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: I found a list of flavours of sunflower seeds that are sold in the US

Hazel: Go on, I can tell this is gonna be good

Liz: Chocolate coated, which I can attest are delicious

Hazel: Ok

Liz: Plain roasted

Hazel: Standard

Liz: Salted

Hazel: Ok, ok

Liz: Barbecue

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: Hot sauce

Hazel: Right

Liz: Bacon

Hazel: What?

Liz: Nacho cheese

Hazel: No

Liz: Pickle

Hazel: Why?

Liz: And ranch!

Hazel: What?! (laughs)

Liz: Your noises suggest you don’t want to try pickle or ranch sunflower seeds

Hazel: I’m not saying I wouldn’t try it if it was there, I just wouldn’t go out of my way to buy a pack of ranch flavoured sunflower seeds

Liz: I think I would, just out of a sort of morbid curiosity, not because I think they would taste good

Hazel: But why

Liz: But if they were there, I think I would have to try them

Hazel: (laughs) But why would you forsake nature’s great flavouring of salt in favour of artificial ranch?

Liz: (laughing) As opposed to natural ranch dressing

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: Which is harvested from cacti

Hazel: From the ranch fields. That was the other 20% of early North American agriculture, was the ranch fields, right?

Liz: Yeah

Hazel: Not to be confused with your ranches

Liz: Yeah it’s difficult to keep them separate in your mind

Hazel: (laughs) You’ve just gotta remember, one has horses, the other doesn’t

Liz: Unless you’re using the horses on the ranch farm ‘cause you don’t have a tractor

Hazel: Yeah, that’s true, if you need to plough up the ranch. I know about America

(both laugh)

Liz: Don’t at us

Hazel: (laughs) Unless you’re gonna tell us about your great-grandaddy’s time in the ranch field industry

Liz: Sunflower seeds are also a fairly common street food in the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, and a lot of Asia as well

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: I have to imagine not pickle or ranch flavour, but I might be wrong

Hazel: Apparently it’s a popular bar snack, basically

Liz: It’s also been used as an aid to quit chewing tobacco

Hazel: That makes sense

Liz: If you’ve seen the film Holes

Hazel: I have indeed

Liz: Mr Sir chews sunflower seeds ‘cause he’s trying to give up tobacco

Hazel: ‘Cause he’s quitting smoking

Liz: It’s an actual thing

Hazel: I remember that

Liz: You can also get in, especially Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, and Romania, you can get sunflower brittle

Hazel: Ooh

Liz: And sunflower butter

Hazel: That sounds quite nice

Liz: Apparently sunflower butter is, it’s not as high in protein as peanut butter

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: But it still has a lot

Hazel: Ok

Liz: And most people who are allergic to peanuts can have sunflower butter

Hazel: Oh brilliant

Liz: There was one study where one participant was allergic to both peanuts and sunflower butter

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: But it’s generally considered safe

Hazel: Awesome

Liz: It’s likely that that person had two separate allergies

Hazel: Oh ok

Liz: Rather than it being the peanut allergy. That’s been a thing since the 1980s, and has spread to a lot of places. I think I’ve seen it in health food shops

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: But yeah, it’s much bigger in Eastern Europe

Hazel: Cool

Liz: Interestingly though, the bit of the sunflower that we refer to as the flower is not the flower

Hazel: What, the bit with the petals?

Liz: Yeah. It’s what’s called a false flower, or capitula

Hazel: (gasps) No, I can’t believe sunflowers have been lying to me this whole time

Liz: They have. They are deceitful

Hazel: Unacceptable

Liz: The capitula is actually made up of lots of little flowers

Hazel: No way

Liz: Each of which becomes one sunflower seed

Hazel: Wow. I did not know that (laughs)

Liz: Which doesn’t really affect us, as people who just eat sunflower, and don’t really think about it beyond that most of the time, but yeah, sunflowers are liars

Hazel: (laughs) That is incredible. I will forgive them, because their seeds and products are so delicious, but no way. Should call them sunliars

Liz: Sick burn

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: Apparently sunflower seeds also show up in a lot of halva, which is a collective term for a lot of different Middle Eastern grain-based sweets

Hazel: Ok, yeah, I think I’ve seen one kind, a sticky sweet. I don’t know how to describe it, but yeah, I know what you mean

Liz: But again, it imparts that kind of nutty flavour without putting nuts in, so seems like sunflowers are really good for people with nut allergies. They can get all that protein and taste, and unless you’re that one person you’re probably not allergic to it

Hazel: Unless you’re very unlucky

Liz: Yeah. Interestingly, with saying about Jerusalem artichokes being used for biomass fuel, there have been some experiments into using sunflower seed hulls leftover from processing as biomass fuel as well

Hazel: Ok, how did that go?

Liz: It works, but it’s a question of whether it’s viable

Hazel: Ok

Liz: Without growing a lot of extra sunflower seeds just for the biomass

Hazel: Whether the process, the amount it takes to do it, is worth it. Ok, that’s interesting though. Wow

Liz: Before we move on to local larder, I do just want to…when you’re a kid, you get told a lot, I think a lot of people do, that sunflowers turn to face the sun to help with photosynthesis

Hazel: Ok

Liz: That’s not true

Hazel: So many sunflower lies, where does it end?

Liz: The thing is, I think when you’re a kid you’re like “yeah, that makes sense”, but it’s the leaves that do the photosynthesis

Hazel: It does absolutely…honestly if somebody told me that now, I’d believe them

Liz: But it’s the leaves that do the photosynthesis, not the flower

Hazel: Yeah, yeah, yeah

Liz: There’s a theory that the reason they do it is it warms the flower up, which attracts more pollinating insects

Hazel: Aww, I love that

Liz: They just want a warm place to sit and eat their nectar

Hazel: Just want some sun on their face

Liz: From all of the tiny real flowers within the giant liars flower

Hazel: Yeah. That’s beautiful. I love sunflowers even more

Liz: And also they’re very pretty

Hazel: They are. They’re so great. I’m so happy

Liz: So that is my brief history of sunflowers, and I guess also Jerusalem artichokes

Hazel: It counts if they’re in the same category, I think

Liz: It’s all Helianthus

Hazel: Helianthus all the way down

Liz: Yeah, ‘cause the artichokes are under the ground

(both laugh)

Hazel: That’s it, the podcast finished, we’re done, we’re never gonna top that

Liz: (laughs)

Hazel: Thank you everyone for listening over the past couple of years, we hope you’ve enjoyed it, goodbye

(both laugh)

Liz: On the other hand, you could send us a suggestion at tumblr, at Bread and Thread, or by emailing breadandthreadpodcast @ gmail.com, if you maybe didn’t want the podcast to end

Hazel: Nice segue. And if, for some reason, you enjoy listening to us, and you would in particular like to hear us talk about something, then please do that, this episode, I think you said, was a suggestion from a listener

Liz: It was

Hazel: You can also check out our twitter, at breadandthread, for things, pictures of things that we talk about on the show, links that we mention we will put up there teasers for upcoming episodes, and we also just retweet, that’s what they call it on twitter, right(?), things that we find interesting

Liz: Guess which one of us does the social media

Hazel: (laughs) I’ve never had twitter, it’s just a whole list of things that are designed to make you angry pumped straight into your eyeballs

Liz: Yeah

Hazel: But not our twitter

Liz: If you want things that aren’t designed to make you angry, you can sign up to our patreon

Hazel: Yes

Liz: To get access to our discord, and recipes, which I think this month was Welsh cakes, because pancake day was on St David’s Day

Hazel: Could have made pancakes with leeks in them

Liz: You could do that, or you could make Welsh cakes, which are great

Hazel: We’re also on youtube, also Bread and Thread, where we have youtube versions of episodes, in case you prefer getting your domestic history goodness through that medium

Liz: And I think that’s everything, so what is the local larder?

Hazel: Since…I’m a bit late to the party on this, but since it has fairly recently been the Lunar New Year, about a month ago, I thought I would talk about something related to that, before it gets far enough away that I can’t link it back to Lunar New Year, so I’m going to introduce you to bánh chưng, or chưng cake, which is a Vietnamese new year food. This is traditionally eaten at the festival of Tết, which is the Vietnamese New Year, which takes place at the Lunar New Year, and it is a cake, but it is a savoury cake

Liz: Ok

Hazel: And it’s also not baked. It’s a cake in the sense that it is cake shaped

Liz: It’s the definition of cake which is one unit of food

Hazel: Yes, it is an absolute unit

Liz: (laughs)

Hazel: This is the cakiest cake that you will ever come across. There is also a story that goes along with this traditional food

Liz: The best part

Hazel: Exactly. You know we love a food-related story. Bánh chưng is, my accent is terrible, I do apologise, but it is made out very simple ingredients, it is just rice, sticky rice, glutinous rice, mung beans, and pork, belly pork, the kind that has fat on it, and that is pretty much it, and it’s wrapped in banana leaves, and then it is boiled, and

Liz: I could get into this

Hazel: That is the basic way of making a chưng cake. There are various different versions, but the most popular one, especially in the northern parts of Vietnam, is the one that I described. Now the story that goes along with this cake, I’m gonna start with that, and then I will talk a little bit more about the preparation. The story that goes along with this cake goes back to the sixth Hùng emperor, who at the time was ruling Vietnam, and this is in the realm of a long long time ago, and he was getting very old, thinking it was time to pass on, decide who was going to inherit his kingdom

Liz: Ok, not time to pass on as in just “time to die”

Hazel: Also probably that at some point, but realising his mortality, suddenly, he decided it was time to settle the question of inheritance, and decide which of his 22 sons was going to take the throne

Liz: That’s a lot of sons

Hazel: It is quite a lot of sons, and therefore requires a bit of creative thinking about how to decide who is the best one to take on the kingdom, indeed the empire, and so he decided to hold a cooking contest

Liz: Naturally

Hazel: Of course. The one, the son, that could cook the best dish, that would satisfy his tastes, and the one that pleased him the most, would be his heir, so the sons travelled far and wide, looking for the rarest, the most expensive foods, all except for Prince Lieu, who was the 18th son, and sadly his mother died when he was young, and so he didn’t really have that much growing up, because when you’re the 18th son not much is allocated you compared  to the other ones, and so, while the other sons were out looking for the most expensive delicacies, he was just at home, and he didn’t know what he was gonna do, and then, a few days before the end of the contest, he was thinking about all of the different foods, and what he could possibly do, and as he fell asleep he was thinking about this, and he had a dream in which a goddess appeared and told him what to do, and showed him how to make these two dishes. One of them was bánh chưng, and the other one was bánh xèo, which is another kind of rice cake. He woke up, and he got to cooking, and he made this cake exactly as it had been described to him in his dream, using just the humblest of ingredients, the belly of the pork, the fatty bit, the beans, and the rice, and shaped it into a square shape to represent the earth, while the other cake was made into a round shape, to represent the heavens, and on the day of the contest people came to watch, and the other princes laid out their very rare and expensive foods which, according to one of the versions I found, included things like pangolin’s livers, and bear arms?

Liz: Sure

Hazel: And Prince Lieu brought up his offering, which people laughed at first, because it looked so humble, this square of rice, and then they tasted it, and it was delicious, and the Emperor saw that, as well as being delicious, it represented the greenery of their country, and represented the earth and the heavens, and was truly a genius food, and so Prince Lieu was declared the winner, and inherited the kingdom

Liz: I like that

Hazel: It’s great. It’s just a nice little story in which making the humble but delicious food wins the day. So that is the origin story of chưng cake, if you will, but, as I mentioned, traditionally eaten in the festival of Tết, and there is a good reason for this, that it is a particular festival food, ‘cause you might think, even though it sounds fairly humble, it actually takes quite a long time to prepare. You take the banana leaves, and you make up this cake with the layers of rice, mung bean, pork in the middle seasoned, mung bean, and then rice, and then you fold it, wrap it like a present in the banana leaves, into this square parcel. The square shape is supposed to represent the earth, and then the contents represents the plants and the animals and everything

Liz: Mm-hmm

Hazel: And so when you’ve wrapped it and you’ve tied it around with strings so that it’s all held in nicely into this square shape, and then you boil it, and it has to be boiled for 8-12 hours

Liz: Oh wow

Hazel: Apparently traditionally it’s kind of a festive event, where you make a whole batch of these cakes, and you put them in…traditionally it’s cooked in a big cylindrical pot, with a wood fire underneath, so people sit around and talk and swap stories and stuff, and relax as the chưng cake cooks, or sometimes it’s cooked overnight, as well, and then when it’s done, the green colour of the banana leaves is imparted to the surface of the cake, so it’s green, and then you can cut it open, although it’s very sticky, and that’s it, you have chưng cake, and you can have a few different accompaniments with it. Apparently there’s a certain kind of pickles that go really well with it. I’ve had it with soy sauce, which is probably wrong, but still tastes good, or you can have fish sauce, or whatever. Apparently it is really good fried, as well, if you have leftovers

Liz: Ooh that does sound good, just crisping it up a little bit

Hazel: Yeah. I have not tried that, I would really like to. So yeah, that is chưng cake. As you might expect, it is not very common for families, especially in the city, to make their own chưng cake now, because it just takes so long, so you can buy it, or you can order it from people who specialise in making it as a side thing at the holiday, or will have all the equipment to make it, but either way, still delicious. I will say it’s quite heavy, it’s pretty dense

Liz: Given when Lunar New Year tends to fall, I don’t think that’s the worst thing

Hazel: Oh yeah, it definitely gives you that winter energy

Liz: Stick to your ribs

Hazel: Oh yeah, good stuff, good honest food, and few ingredients, and relatively easily available ones, so it’s easy to see why it became such a popular traditional food, and that is bánh chưng, and it is delicious

Liz: Next episode will be either a book or a biography

Hazel: I forgot to say, as well, I will link on the twitter to a video about chưng cake, if anyone is interested in seeing the process of that being made

Liz: Ooh nice. I’m quite interested

Hazel: I will zap it over to you now

Liz: For now, thank you for listening, and we will see you next time

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