Ha Giang is not only well-known for its majestic scenery, diverse customs and traditions, rich and unique festivals, monumental mountains but also famous for a variety of attractive natural products. Because of the geographic location and diverse cultural life of many ethnic groups, culinary culture of Ha Giang is also very special. The dishes of the ethnic people are made of sources from nature, so they become strange, interesting, impressive and only available in upland Ha Giang.
Thang den
Thang den is a snack of the Ha Giang people in general and is considered a food for friends in the cold winter days in Dong Van town. This truly is a specialty of Ha Giang province.
Thang den is made of glutinous rice flour. Depending on the taste of each person, the baker will add the bean to this dish or not. Their shape looks like the floating cakes in Hanoi street food. If visitors do not ask the people here, they will surely mistake it for floating cake. Thang den is only slightly bigger than thumbs, put in bowls with sweet sugar syrup mixed with coconut milk and ginger, so it creates a sweet, fat and spicy mixture. In each of the bowl is also added to the roasted sesame or crispy peanut, which make this specialty look more attractive.
It is not known when thang den became a special snack in Ha Giang. People here often use them to “add salt” in the exchange with friends. This specialty makes the tourists remember forever for the first time they try.
Thang co Ha Giang
Thang co Ha Giang is a special food of the mountain so there are many tourists from all places to enjoy it. It is a strangely fascinating rustic dish. According to the old man of Mong ethnic, the thang co means bone soup. The thang co mainly consists of bones, the meat and viscera of cattles, especially horse meat.
Folk tradition, the history of the pot of thang co has been over 300 years. During the war, there was no pot, and then, the Highlanders used the horse’s skin to make a large pan and used the horse meat to make food. Up to now, the thang co has become a bold feature of the mountainous people. In a festival or on the day of the fair, the people here usually organize the cooking thang co to serve the festival as well as the tourists from all places.
Five-colors sticky rice
If in Hanoi, sticky rice also one of the Hanoi traditional food and famous for the variety of types, sticky rice in Ha Giang is famous for the variety of colors.
In this dish, there are five distinct colors such as white, yellow, purple, red, green combined harmoniously, creating an eye-catching food. This sticky rice is made from a kind of glutinous rice cultivated by the ethnic people and it brings a specific meaning through the colors of sticky rice.
Five-colors sticky rice is colorful and fragrant. Thus, the ethnic people often eat this sticky rice when going to work in the field, because the distance from home to work is quite far away.
A dish that has become the specialty of Highlanders, only the name has reminded people of the great grandeur of this land … With eye-catching form, the fragrance smell, sticky rice has become an indispensable dish for ethnic festivals in the year.
If you are a person who loves cooking, what could be better than savouring this unique food made by yourself in Vietnam cooking class.