Rice cakes come in many forms such as square (banh chung), circular (banh day), and cylindrical (banh tet) shapes. In the inner core of these cakes is usually diced pork with some pork fat or just green beans. The outer layer is all white rice. The cakes are carefully wrapped with banana leaves then tied together very neat and tight. The cakes are then steamed for hours until they can be eaten with fish sauce and somtimes they are fried and eaten with fish sauce or other vegetable pickles. The vegetble pickles can be made from carrot, onion, and cucumber. They are cut to small slices then dried for two to three days in the hot sun then they are bottled with water, salt and sugar. Vegetable pickles go very well with rice cake because they are salty and the salt stimulates saliva making it easy to swallow
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