Nom Ansom
which is also known as Khmer sticky rice cake, is a traditional dessert used
and made to celebrate Pchum Ben. Pchum Ben, also known as Ancestor’s Day, is a
Cambodian religious Buddhist festival that happens for 15 days every year and
it usually takes place in late September. Almost every year my parents and
their friends would make or buy Nom Ansom and bring it to a Buddhist temple to
celebrate Pchum Ben. They would all gather and pray together in the temple and
then offer the dessert to the monks, relatives, and their ancestors. Nom Ansom is
made out of glutinous rice, pork, mung beans, and then it is wrapped with
banana leaves. You also tie the dessert with strong plastic strings around it.
Once you filled in the pork and mung beans within the rice and wrap it with
banana leaves and have it ted, you steam the dessert in the steamer. For some people, it takes
about a few hours to make them, but it's worth the time in making Nom Ansom because it’s delicious
and many people enjoy eating it.
Since it is September and the oriental stores are selling
mooncakes, it has always been a question of mine of how this is part of my
culture. When I was young, my parents
would visit our relatives and give them mooncakes. We would cut them up into 6-8 pieces
depending on how many people were present and ate them with tea. As kids, we only enjoyed eating the sweet
ones that contained the red bean paste or black bean paste. After that, an adult would help us light our
lanterns and take us out to walk around the neighborhood singing songs in our
native language. There were a variety of
flavors such as the red bean paste, lotus seed paste, and dates, nuts, fruit
with Chinese sausages and egg yolks.
I know that for sure, in the month of September, the moon appears
to shine the brightest the entire year.
I have heard a lot of legends told about the moon festival as a
child. The most famous one I heard was
of the moon fairy that lives in the crystal palace. She would come out and dance on the moon’s
shadow. The other legend involved hiding
information for the rebellion against Mongols in mooncakes due to the fact that
the Mongols did not eat them. Families
were instructed to eat the mooncakes on the day of the moon festival. The actual reason for this festival is
because vegetables and grains are harvested at this time of year. It is to thank the Gods for the food. Other activities involved in this festival
are dancing, incense, bright lanterns, and food offering on the alters.
