Huong Sen Com Ruou and Banh Tro

A family workshop making traditionally fermented sticky rice, working at full stretch only around the Doan Ngo festival.

Making com ruou has been this family's trade for more than twenty years; the daughter now does the main work alongside her parents, who are past eighty. Fermented sticky rice is a dish of the Doan Ngo festival, the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. By common custom in Vietnam, people eat it early in the morning of the fifth day, right after waking up, to kill the worms. The family only produces in quantity for about ten days around the Doan Ngo festival; the amount is limited and must be ordered in advance.

English text: machine translation from the Localis platform — proper names kept in Vietnamese.