In a desire to spread messages of love and reunion through traditional cuisine, Nguyen Tan Dat, a young man living in District 3, Ho Chi Minh City came up with a unique idea.

Dat spent more than one month making all dishes that are ‘must-haves’ in a traditional Lunar New Year banquet of the Vietnamese who live in the northern, central, and southern regions.

He chose clay as the main material to ‘cook’ all the dishes.

Under his creative hands, clay material was transformed into banh chung (square sticky rice cake), banh tet (cylindrical sticky rice cake), watermelon, and cooked pork with eggs.

Many other favorites come to life after being shaped and painted by the young man.

Before embarking on the special project, Dat devoted time to getting to know about each region’s cultural distinctions.

He studied each region’s traditional dishes and then chose the most typical ones.

“I try my best to create clay dishes that are as similar to the real ones as possible," Dat said.

“In addition to clay, I opted for other materials like rice powder, wheat flour, and Lai Thieu ceramic plates to make the dishes more familiar and appealing,” he added, referring to a ceramics village in Binh Duong Province, which borders Ho Chi Minh City to the northeast.

The main reason that prompted Dat to make clay dishes is a suggestion from a friend who is living abroad. That friend could not return to Vietnam for the Lunar New Year holiday, which ended last week, because of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

So the friend asked Dat to make traditional Vietnamese dishes to help children learn about the motherland’s cuisine, especially traditional dishes for the holiday.

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