Blog

Sep 15, 2023

Why Vietnamese mứt tết sweets are the Lunar New Year's MVP

Mứt tết is perhaps the most ubiquitous Tết (also known as Lunar New Year)

Mứt tết is perhaps the most ubiquitous Tết (also known as Lunar New Year) dish for Vietnamese families.

Lunar New Year feasts have always been an exercise in abundance in my family. I remember dish after dish—plated on the signature Chinese red floral melamine flatware—coming out from the kitchen as my mom and grandma spent hours preparing ancestral offerings that would later become lunches and dinners for days to come.

But one offering on the table would never be prepared at home, instead purchased from a strip mall in a Vietnamese enclave an hour south where I grew up in Los Angeles. Every year, a box of mứt tết—a variety of sweets and candied fruits—made its way in front of the gray-blue Buddha by our fireplace, before being passed around after the main courses were eaten.

The author's grandparents took these mứt tết boxes with them when they fled Vietnam in 1979.

Mứt tết is perhaps the most ubiquitous Tết (also known as Lunar New Year) dish for Vietnamese families. The confections, especially popular with children, are usually eaten as a snack alongside copious cups of tea. As family and friends go from home to home to celebrate the many days of Tết, they'll pass around mứt tết boxes detailed in red and gold to accompany lucky red envelopes and well wishes.

A mứt tết box as found sold at Hong Kong City Mall's food market.

At its largest, an octagonal mứt tết box can hold more than a dozen types of candy, fruits and nuts. Some families, including mine, have ornate wooden boxes that have traveled across the Pacific Ocean and onto U.S. shores with them, refilled every year from bulk bins at supermarkets. Others opt for the pre-packaged ones at the store, where treats like lotus seeds and dried ribbons of candied coconut are already neatly separated into different compartments. An entire cottage industry for IYKYK sweets and cakes exists for Tết, often difficult to find unless you're fluent in Vietnamese and plugged into the community.

Here are some of the most common sweets and dried candies in mứt tết boxes.

Wintermelon candy (mứt bi dao)

A tray of Tết sweets is not complete without wintermelon candy. The snow-white wintermelon is almost translucent in this form, and tastes like pure sugar. It sometimes comes wrapped in cellophane, though more traditional mứt tết doesn't bother with individually wrapped sweets in a communal dish.

Candied lotus seed (mứt sen)

Bite-sized dried lotus seeds are mellow in flavor, so some varieties come coated in sugar. In northern Vietnam, mứt sen is usually consumed with a cup of lotus tea during the Lunar New Year, according to the Hanoi Times.

Candied mango (mứt xoai)

Yes, you can get dried candied mango from Trader Joe's any day. But there's something about nibbling on a fragrant slice of green mango, sticky to the touch with sugar crystals, as your family fusses over the placement of every dish on the offering table. Candied mango is also my personal favorite.

Candied ginger (mứt gung)

People who prefer complex sweets usually love candied ginger, which retains its spice even after being cooked in sugar syrup. Mứt gung is available year-round.

Candied coconut (mứt dua)

Usually dyed different colors to differentiate from other candies, candied coconut ribbons are one of the most iconic mứt tết sweets. They stand out in a Tết tray because they're the only items that appear pink, green or neon yellow.

Candied kumquats (mứt tac)

Mứt tac are most often found smashed flat, resembling little golden sunbursts. Candy makers cut into the fruit to squeeze the seeds out, before parboiling to soften and remove some of the bitterness from the peels. They're then tossed in hot sugar syrup to create their glossy sheen. Some producers leave the kumquats whole, creating amber-colored sweet and sour globes.

Dried tamarind (mứt me)

Dried tamarind doesn't come with chile powder in Southeast Asian cuisine. In this form, it's dehydrated whole and turned chewy, and unlike other confections in a Tết tray, tastes more sour than sweet.

Dried sweet bananas (mứt chuoi khô)

Bananas are commonly used in all sorts of Vietnamese dishes, both sweet and savory (the fruit and banana leaves are used to make bánh chưng, another Tết delicacy). Here, they're dried whole and turned into chewy logs.

Roasted watermelon seeds (hạt dưa)

The same black seeds that are spit out while enjoying a slice of watermelon turn into dark red snacks for the Lunar New Year. Compared to everything else in the tray, these are on the saltier side, though they still have a sweet, nutty aftertaste.

Dried pumpkin seeds (hạt bí)

People who aren't fans of hạt dưa may prefer pumpkin seeds, which are easier to crack open. Just like their watermelon counterparts, hạt bí is both salty and sweet. And similar to other nuts and seeds, you crack the seed open with your teeth and eat the inside.

Crunchy peanut and sesame candy (kẹo lạc)

One of the few parts to a typical mứt tết that isn't a candied fruit, kẹo lạc is made with layers of peanut (also incredibly common in Vietnamese cooking) and white sesame seeds. This also may come wrapped in cellophane, largely to keep it from sticking to other confectionery. But unlike the American version of the candy, this one is often chewy and sticky instead of crunchy and malty.

Bánh's Vi Bakery, 11201 Bellaire Blvd # A-17, Houston, TX 77072

Cho Thanh Binh Supermarket, 11810 Bellaire Blvd STE B, Houston, TX 77072

Hong Kong Food Market, 11205 Bellaire Blvd, Houston, TX 77072

Viet Hoa International Foods, 8300 W Sam Houston Pkwy S STE 100, Houston, TX 77072

Coffee | Uncovering our favorite spots in Houston for a caffeine fixTribute | America's most iconic gay bar comes to Houston for PrideDry | The struggle to get sober in Houston's restaurant sceneRIP | Houston's iconic Blake's BBQ & Burgers closes its doors

For more food news and features from Chron, sign up for The Feed newsletter here.