Đề thi thử tốt nghiệp THPT 2027 môn Tiếng Anh — Đề ôn luyện số 10

When Ms Hanh's grandmother passed away, the family realised that nobody knew exactly how to make her famous New Year sticky rice cakes. She had never written anything down; she simply measured with her hands and judged by smell and taste. "We had eaten those cakes every year of our lives," Hanh says, "but we had never really watched her make them."

Stories like this are common. In many countries, traditional dishes are passed down not through cookbooks but through years of cooking side by side in family kitchens. As young people move to cities, work long hours and rely more on fast food and ready meals, this chain of knowledge is easily broken. Food experts warn that once a recipe is forgotten, it is very hard to bring back, and with it disappear the stories, festivals and local ingredients that gave the dish its meaning.

Fortunately, a growing number of people are taking action. Some young cooks now film their grandparents preparing family dishes and share the videos online, where they often attract thousands of viewers. Schools in some areas invite local elders to give cooking lessons, and a few towns hold annual food festivals at which forgotten dishes are cooked and tasted once again. Even small restaurants can play a part by putting regional specialities back on their menus.

Preserving food heritage does not mean refusing to change. Recipes have always developed over time as cooks experimented with new ingredients. What matters is that each generation understands where its food comes from before deciding what to keep and what to change. As Hanh puts it, after spending a whole weekend learning to make the cakes from an elderly neighbour, "A recipe is like a letter from the past. If nobody reads it, the message is lost."