The Vietnamese lunar New Year, or Tet, was rung in Sunday in the seaside town of Nha Trang with the cutting of what authorities claim is the largest traditional Vietnamese sticky-rice cake ever cooked, dpa reported.
The cake, a tube 34 metres long wrapped in banana leaves, was suspended in a bamboo framework on the beachfront promenade. Passers- by were offered slices for 10,000 dong (60 cents) each, with the proceeds donated to charity.
The 34 metres commemorate the 34 years since the 1975 victory of North Vietnam in the Vietnam War.
Staff at the city's Yasaka Hotel, where the cake was cooked, said they had begun baking giant Tet cakes in 2004, when Nha Trang was listed one of the world's 29 most beautiful bays in the same year as the 29th anniversary of the reunification of the country.
"We baked a 29-metre-long Tet cake," said Nguyen Hong Nhat Huy, assistant marketing manager at the Yasaka. "It had a lot of meaning, because Tet cakes are very special to Vietnamese. It represents health, wealth, and luck in the new year."
Since then, the cake has grown a metre each year.
"It's much harder than cooking a regular Tet cake," said Le Thi Thu Thao, the Yasaka's head chef. "You have to have teams of cooks working in sections, and then you need to carry it to the cooking pot without letting it break."
Tet cakes, normally 70 centimetres long, are prepared by wrapping sticky rice, mung and black beans, peanuts, pork, coconut, and a red fruit known as "gac" in banana or arrowroot leaves, and boiling them for several hours. The record-setting cake required the construction of a special 35-metre-long boiling pot.
The cakes are known as "banh Tet" in southern Vietnam and "banh chung" in the North. According to myth, they were invented by the son of King Hung Vuong, a legendary forefather of the Vietnamese emperors, in a cooking contest to decide the king's heir.
Efforts to set world records in obscure categories have become popular publicity stunts in Vietnam.
In 2005, a Saigon hotel claimed to have built the world's largest beer bottle Christmas tree. In April 2008, Hanoi hosted the opening of the world's largest photo album, "Vietnamese Women," by Japanese photographer Hitomi Toyama.
In November, the Vietnamese coffee company Vinacafe Bien Hoa publicized a coffee festival by hoisting what it claimed was the world's largest coffee cup over the city under a helicopter. The stunt went awry when the helicopter backed into a tree, severely injuring two onlookers.
