Stickyrice

Ant Egg Season

I like the idea of things in nature - be they fauna or flora, edible or not - that have short seasons. Like the succulent plant in my little courtyard garden that picks its moment to shoot flowers when Hanoi's murky grey spring is breaking into days when the sun is out for a few hours, when real warmth is returning, before the summer oven goes on for the next five months. An intricate hanging white thing, it is perfect for a few days. Then decay sets in and now it's as if it never existed. All within a week.

That's just one example of this short season phenomena that I have become rather more attuned to observing since lobbing in this part of the world a decade ago.  These 'short season seasons' appear to occur at either end of the oppressive summer here, when temperatures are rising through warm or falling through cool.

Mulberries do the rounds on Hanoi's streets for a few weeks. Hibiscus flowers, too. And little balls of fruit called soan dao, which I posted about years ago and still do not have an English translation for. Tonkin jasmine (hoa thiên lý), sometimes known as sky flowers, are about to hit the menus of bia hơi restaurants across Hanoi. Sometimes I stumble upon these little gems on my walks about town. Other times, I spy them rather rudely reading a screen across the shoulder of a colleague.

And I pounce with the questions and a train of thought is put into motion. In this case also, a memory of a book arose, read years ago and mentioned in the pages of this blog. A book about Laos and a quest to find and eat ant egg soup, a successful quest:

"There on the ground, on a shiny heart-shaped leaf the size of a serving plate, lay a creamy mound of fresh ant eggs. To me it was like finding a pile of priceless diamonds"
Natacha Du Pont De Bie, 'Ant Egg Soup: The Adventures of a Food Tourist in Laos'

My mission would be as successful though much less heroic. I had an address and it wasn't the jungle in Laos. I had, too, the name of a dish; xôi trứng kiến (sticky rice with ant eggs). But I did have this 'short season' portent to beat. Apparently ants don't take (nuptial) flight that often. Some weeks in March and April was my vague window of opportunity, I had been told.

Quan Kien is a restaurant that specialises in what you might call 'bush tucker', much of which is derived from ethnic minority groups in remote areas, some even in Laos. They distill their own rice liquor, some varieties flavoured with fruit, others with flowers and herbs, all highly alcoholic. I drank a big bottle of Beer Lao and made sure the ants had been laying.

They had, the eggs appearing as a kind of topping on the sticky rice, mixed with a cooked greasy coagulation of finely chopped shallot, wood ear mushroom and crispy dried shallot. Taken as a mouthful together, the predominant flavour was unpleasant oil. The ant eggs however, picked up precisely and singularly in my chopsticks were rich and delicate, complex and rewarding eating. And small. Protein-y and vegetable-y at the same time, they are reminiscent of both roe and the tiny pea in a snow pea when bitten through. 

Crudely, particularly given their short season, I imagined them squashed and spread on toast or mashed into a dip to be eaten with crackers.

Quán Kiến
143 Nghi Tàm
West Lake, Hanoi

Rangoon Market Shot: Goats Heads

This photograph does not horrify me. When I encountered this scene in a Rangoon market, I did not recoil nor turn my head. I did not feel sorry for the goats. For I've been away from the developed world for some time. Seen harsh things. Become a bit hard myself. Had a change of world view, in some respects.

In my local market in Hanoi, I'm amused when I see the pork vendor removing the porcine hair from a pig's belly with a man's razor blade. It makes me think of myself that very morning. When the duck's neck is slit and blood is squirting, then trickling into a basin, I see the patience in the process, in not wanting to see blood split. What was running through this duck's veins will not be flushed away. It, along with its organs and tubes, will be consumed. The duck's beak may protrude later, after it's been boiled, at the duck noodle soup stall as a sign that this bird was quacking this morning. Fresh duck is going with these noodles, it says, with dignity.

Here, there is grooming after death. A woman rubs a chicken carcass under water with a tender pressure to remove its feathers. The goats' heads are arranged in a tidy row, all facing the same way, ears smoothed down; not just tossed in some messy pile. Organs and other insides are displayed as glossy abstract art installations. I see a meaningful relationship between man and beast here. That a goat butcher's customer can see what kind of animal was killed by him, that a chicken seller can take pride in the fact that a customer admires a bird of hers is surely some kind of testament to the value of these animals' lives.

What disturbs me is the meat department in the supermarkets of my origins. All signs that the product used to be an animal are removed. Styrofoam, cling wrap, stainless steel and flourescent light make it all very clear that this is the end of some clinical factory process, where humans can't even be bothered to do the killing anymore. Automatons in white coats, surgical gloves and hair nets march out with loaded trolleys to fill up the shelves.

With products.

When I'm shopping for meat, I now want to recognise the animal.

Book Review: Vietnamese Street Food

If a cookbook only has pretty pictures and recipes, that's okay. I might oo and ah while I flick through it, sticky-note some of the pages with recipes that match my food pangs and get it out again from time to time. It may not be of much further interest, even accounting for the ardent appreciation I have for nearly all things food. I guess what I'm saying is that these kinds of recipe books are a dime a dozen.

But what if the recipe book truly captured the essence of the cuisine's physical place? If it piqued something either nostalgic or yearning in you, in its depiction of that place. If it symbolised in its images your place; a place of plastic stools and tables, of crooked fragile doorways and cracking colonial facades, of bare winter branches, of tireless women with sweat on their brows, of magical market scenes. What if the book was designed with an aesthetic that reflects your experience in that place, with the geometric floor tiles of your abode recreated to edge its pages, with the retro motifs from the plastic tablecloths of your thousand street food meals lifted and superimposed.

How about if the cookbook subtly teaches you something; of the origins of this style of streetside dining, that they relate to the country's wars, changes in its work practices and economic reform. Teaches you something about the society, that "life (there) happens on the streets" and that to survive there, one must have a solid grasp of "the politics of the pavement". Teaches you something about the country's agriculture sector, that the "millions of paddies not only produce the country's staple, rice, but have always been a rich source of protein, providing eels, crabs, snails and frogs".

And what if you see people you know smiling at you from the pages of the cookbook, their lifestyles and wares laid bare. And you can relate to their stories of hardship and know them to be true. And you've sat in their midst and watched them craft their buns or dumplings or clumps of sticky rice. You've heard their voices and seen them flustered and terse or silly with the giggles. You deal with them and their type, daily.

Then, when you turn to the recipes in the book, two realisations occur. First, you have the wherewithal to create these dishes. The wet market, which carries the aromatics of the cuisine's chopping board, the green sprigs the cuisine is famous for, all the animal bits and noodles and rice in all required forms, is just up the street. Second, you've been coached without knowing it, in the finer points of many dishes' preparation and assembly. For ten years, you've witnessed the flash-dunking of noodles, the scissoring of hot chillies, the fanning of the fire.

You can cook these dishes.

In all of the traditional ways: by rolling - a combination of Chinese sausage, jicama and omelette in rice paper for a dunking in a rich hoisin dipping sauce; by grilling - Hanoi's barbeque lunch dish, bun cha, thinly cut bork belly and pork patties, marinated in fish sauce, shallots and sugar, served with noodles and herbs; by boiling - a gingery rice porridge of duck, spring onions and Asian basil; by frying - salt 'n' pepper squid in a coating of chilli, garlic and shallots.

And you can marvel and wonder about the details of preparing others. Marvel at the sense of smell required to choose a rice grain "with a good perfume" or the ability to tie several ingredients together in a spring roll with lettuce and a blanched spring onion bow. Wonder what it might feel like to "peel the thick skin from a pig's tongue". More pleasantly, wonder at the rich taste of black sesame seed and peanut soup on a spoon in your mouth.

Then consider your embarrassment of riches - cook the dishes you want to cook from this book and have the other ones on the street, in your neighbourhood, in your adopted home. Better still, invite the writers of the book and the photographer, who happen to live in your town, to join you.

Vietnamese Street Food
by Tracey Lister and Andreas Pohl
Photographed by Michael Fountoulakis
Design by Daniella Germain
Hardie Grant Books

*thanks Michael for permission to use the images in this post

 

Rangoon: Up and Down

In Rangoon, I looked up a lot. And I looked down a lot, too.

Up at buildings and down at food.

I don't profess to know much about buildings but I know what I like. I particularly like old. I also tend to like buildings that progress hates. Ones that are crumbling and faded. With timber window frames perishing and cracked. I like buildings where humans are visibly present; their linen drying, their mattress airing or indeed they themselves leaning over the balcony, smoking. I like buildings with rusted pipes, weeds growing out of the spouting, birds nesting in the eaves and on the ledges. Gargoyles and scalloping, dilapidation and lichen. All good.

Buildings like this - in such numbers - do not exist in Burma's neighbouring countries, where development is almost faster then the human eye can see it. In Hanoi and Saigon, it's a case of here one day, gone the next. While a process may be adhered to in the case of historic buildings, the preservation of other period structures that may simply have been private houses or government offices is not as assured. In Rangoon, at this time when political manoeuvres aimed at greater democratisation are afoot, the opening of economic doors to foreign investment may have marked a countdown to demolition for many of these majestic buildings. If it were not for an initiative under the Yangon Heritage Trust. Writer and historian Thant Myint-U has just last week spearheaded a deal with the government to temporarily halt the razing of any buildings over 50 years old.

But as I tripped along the broken pavements of the numbered streets between the Scott market and the river in November last year, I feared the worst. So I took a lot of photographs.

Of ordinary buildings with extraordinary aura.

However, this little project was never going to be to the detriment of my appetite. So with my cricked neck from looking up, blurry vision in one eye from looking through the view-finder and a slightly sprained ankle from not watching my footing, I started to tilt my head down. To street food level.

This is a food blog after all; not a bloody building blog. And along the narrower streets south of the market, markets themselves in actual fact, I found many culinary vignettes of interest.

A wok full of oil for one. In what seems to be Indian influence, deep fried snacks are sold at fairly regular intervals up and down these thoroughfares. Both chick pea and rice flour batters bind together vegetable and animal ingredients into fritters. Displayed stacked high on metal trays, I make a bee-line for them. There is something in the human genetic make-up (mine, anyway!) that has an intuitive appreciation for crispy golden brown food items.

There is also the little calorie-conscious voice in the brain that says "at least, choose the green one." And I had to admit, on this occasion it was this 'grass fritter' that caught my intrigue. I questioned the incongruity of deep frying herbs or leafy greens, the coating of oil on which must significantly reduce nutritional value and original flavour.This was confirmed when I put 'grass fritter' to mouth. It's all about the texture of crunch, essentially a non-food.

But my ignorance of Rangoon's street food scene corresponds to my ignorance of its architecture, reduced to simply knowing what I like and what I don't.

Flowers Trump Food in Bali

There is food in this post. Something will be eaten.

But first, admire the floral world of Bali. It deserves attention, for flowers seem to consume time here much like the preparation of a meal. They command market space almost equal to that taken up by the produce we put in our mouths. They are handled with a care verging on sanctity.

Wandering the boxes, crates and baskets of the Ubud Central Market one early morning, the evidence is clear. Flowers and petals are traded equally as routinely as rice or mangoes, or peanuts, or salt. One gets the sense that the floral transaction at a Bali market is part of a custom of duty, age-old and divine. Linked to holiness. Linked to luck.

The selection of variety, hue and shape is done with perhaps a particular design aspect in mind; what will please the gods today?

For those of less artistic bent, the design work is done, a splash of marigold, hints of blue chrysanthemum, a single perfect frangipani, all arranged just so in a tray woven from plant matter. It could be "buy three, get one free" - a kind of fast flower for the busy woman on the go.

Placating the gods, ensuring the harvest, making a happy and harmonious home is not just some whimsy undertaken when the mood strikes or when a favourite flower is in season. Part craft, part chore, the ritual of preparing and placing these little floral installations about one's surrounds is a task which takes time, including that taken at market to buy the 'ingredients'. Or alternatively, the period spent harvesting flowers from the botannical exotica of those surrounds.

Secateurs on a long pole or a rudimentary stick is used to gather flowers located up high. Down low, thumb and forefinger pluck but do not exploit. The garden still looks colourful. The trays are loaded methodically, much like the way chefs plate up dishes at a function. And, as alluded to earlier, there is food involved at this step. Amongst the flowers, tiny squares of banana leaf dotted with rice are placed; a tiny cracker, a sweet, a slice of banana also, perhaps.

Only is all in readiness, however, once the woman performing the ritual is dressed for the occasion. A sarong must be worn, secured around the waist by a narrow sash. Flowers adorn the hair. Incense is lit. Grace transcends. 

Bali is renowned for it's dances and this is one of them, enacted on the pathways and in the doorways all over the island. There is something catholic to it; trays held upon high, plumes of smoke curling, water flicked daintily by a frangipani flower, serene but knowing looks. 

When the offerings have been placed at various points on the property, the sarong shashays back to a work station, most likely a kitchen. When a rest would appear warranted after such undertakings, what actually begins now is the working day. Breakfast needs preparing, guests (like me) need attending to, children need to be hurried to school, other bigger rituals need more thorough preparation.

This marks meal time for Bali's wildlife. Down from trees, up from drains, from the air they come, but not to admire the flowers. 

447 Posts Later

Somehow I've been in Hanoi for nine and a half years.

Somehow I blog and I tweet.

Somehow the market is my museum.

Somehow my table manners have deteriorated.

Somehow I've eaten dog and cat.

Somehow a hair in my soup is now not so abnormal.

Somehow toothpicks are a necessity.

Somehow a lot of chili is not enough.

Somehow phở is my number one comfort food.

Somehow Stickyrice is six.

Crab Tales

I bought some of these crabs once when I was first in Hanoi.

In the honeymoon days.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still entranced with the culinary scene here but when one lands in Vietnam after years of sampling the cuisine in what I suspected may not always have been its most authentic form, I did go a bit ga-ga when confronted with the real deal. The range of herbs was infinitely wider than what I'd experienced in Melbourne, with Vietnam's markets resplendent in so much leafy green that surely its harvest was a leading cause of global warming. All those different rices shaped in perfect geometric cones pointed skywards, predominantly white. But wasn't white rice just white rice? Clearly not, I was to learn.

I don't want to go on much about live animals in market-places as I've covered that ground before. But after the relatively sterile environs of Melbourne's markets where hardly a chicken feather is seen let alone ruffled, I initially found the live produce sections of Vietnam's markets more like a visit to to the farm or the zoo. 

On one such early visit to Hanoi's now re-designed Hang Da market, while I couldn't contemplate  witnessing a bird having its throat cut before me nor a fish thwacked dead with a foot-long baseball bat, I thought I could deal with a pair of restrained crabs. In a bag on the way home, they were relatively well-behaved, their legs and more importantly their pincers tied with rope fashioned from plant matter. The awareness of having a living creature, however, with the jerks and stirrings of an unborn baby amongst one's shopping was disconcerting to say the least. It did dawn on me that I had taken on some higher responsibility, one which during the journey from market to home I was having serious misgivings about.

It was as if I was back at primary school in science class, that one when you have to take the egg home for the weekend and bring it back on Monday without a crack in it.

Once at home, the crabs went in the sink and I sought out the experts at the internet cafe for a recipe and a dignified way to kill them. I read phrases like "crabs are fairly strong for their size" and "scrubbing down the crab can be fairly intimidating" and "the crab will threaten you with its claws". I read about lifting flaps, screwdrivers, piercing and draining. I continued scrolling down half-expecting to find reference to safety glasses and protective clothing! The gastronomic part of the plan, crab in tamarind sauce, seemed like a footnote compared to what I would have to carry out beforehand.

Armed with print-outs titled 'how to kill a crab' and a slew of recipes, I returned home to stare down those crustaceans, give them a bit of intimidation of my own. But the whole plan started to go array when I checked the sink.

One was missing.

A crab unable to move because it was in a strait-jacket was unaccounted for. It goes without saying that determining the thought-processes of a crab gone AWOL was not at that stage in my realm of experience. Could it have gone to the toilet, I thought. Perhaps it was making a run for the coast? In reality, I was freaking, already imagining a mad chase not unlike those I'd wagered against my furry arch enemy, Mr Rat. This time it would be an aggressive scuttling exoskeleton, moving sideways out from under something, pincers at the ready. And I would be ready to fling my tea towel over it to subdue it, rueing that I hadn't printed the pages titled 'how to catch a crab'.

That's if I could have located the bastard. In a two-roomed apartment with a small bathroom and kitchen, it was nowhere to be found. Exhausted and having lost my appetite, I carefully placed the other crab on the bottom shelf of the fridge where it would survive for a few days, according to the experts. It would take me that long to recover from the ordeal and I hadn't even raised a weapon in anger to that point. One crab was missing but none had been killed or eaten.

Two nights later, I was reading on the couch, the escapee crab the farthest thing from my mind. A vague twitching or scatching entered my consciousness and persisted even though I attempted to will it away. My initial reaction was rat and I assumed my regular posture for that circumstance; standing on the sofa, slightly unhinged. From the shoe-rack behind the front door, the noise was irregular but frequent.

And then I remembered the crab with some relief. Up between and behind the winter shoe collection, the crab was wedged, only half restrained by the market vendor's rope, which was still attached, allowing me to drag it into the kitchen at a safe distance. I felt like administering a hanging. Instead I recalled something else I'd read in the 'how to kill a crab' pages, something about 15 minutes in the freezer putting the crab in a sleeping state.

I put them in seven years ago. And, crab in tamarind sauce is a dish that I recommend be taken in restaurants.

Nha Trang Jaunt

The official reason I went to Nha Trang a while ago was to attend a wedding.

And the wedding was fun, a variety show with more highlights than a royal command performance. There was even a red carpet of sorts but that old western adage of never trying to outdo the bride was not being adhered to here. Out of taxis, a parade of glamour from the old world and the new stepped up into the reception centre, áo dài interspersed with revealing black cocktail dresses, glitz and shiny spangles and sequins catching the light, Revlon making a killing on make-up sales.

Inside, the MC facilitated the proceedings, wired up with decibels surely exceeding the limit recommended for prudent ear care. In turn, he delivered us a parade of virgins adorned in white with fluffy fairy wings, their walk up the aisle terminating on stage with thespian-like twirls and waves. A troupe of what looked like Swiss guards in red berets marched up next, brandishing large sticks attached with flowers, out the top of which industrial grade sparklers were shooting fire at their feet. A pre-pubescent ballroom-dancing couple shook their booty about in the next act. Nha Trang's wedding singers belted out a few tunes as did the father of the bride (beer in hand) and an aunt of the bride. Singing a traditional song from the Central Highlands, she nearly brought the house down.

Meantime, the people whose union we were gathered to celebrate were being given the rounds of the table.

Literally.

After pouring red champagne through a science experiment of tubes, flutes and dry ice and cutting not one, not two but five (three are fake) wedding cakes, the couple are being dragged from one table of guests to the next for toasts, smiles and pleasantries. By table number 33, the barely sipped champagne is as hot as tea, the smiles somewhat strained and the pleasantries reduced to "how did you get a berth at my wedding?" After such a marathon, they are craving food, drink and familiar faces.

But by then the guests are leaving. It's all over. And, without wanting to sound ungrateful, so was the official part of my journey to Nha Trang.

The next night I was seeking simplicity, not so much entertainment...and seafood. On the road that hugs the coast north of Nha Trang is a restaurant I've been visiting regularly since 2002. The menu is all things ocean and just across the road is the sea. The fish that night was raw and so fresh I convinced myself its nerve endings were still feigning movement.

Gỏi cá mai translates as raw salad of the tomorrow fish. On its platter, it spoke of promise. I wrapped the fish's little fillets in rice paper with lettuce, herbs and finely julienned pineapple, young banana, red pepper and cucumber. In a tương with chili and crushed peanuts, the completed rolls got their finishing touch.

And I got what I really came to Nha Trang for.

Biển Tiền Hải Sản
ride 3km north out Trần Phú St
( it's on the left )
Nha Trang 

A Touch of Japan

I like the entrepreneurial spirit of the Vietnamese.

They are a 'get-up-and-go' kind of people; blindly optimistic, vague and blundering at times, yes, but the energy is generally positive. Get rich quick schemes are rife, business ideas go from mere utterance to reality in a matter of weeks. "What can we do to make more money?" is pondered by affluent and impoverished alike. Things happen here. And when they stop happening, they get hit with a hammer until they start happening again.

This rush forward is no more in evidence than in the retail and restaurant sector. With so much cheap labour available it's not impossible to get a shop or eatery fitted out and operational in no time. Carpenters and handymen can be picked up on the side of the road in the manner of a hitch-hiker, their saws and rudimentary tool kits the thumb to indicate they're looking for a ride to a day's work. Building laws are somewhat lax so the quality of the workmanship is hardly if ever inspected and even if it is, compliance can be obtained by the contents of a white envelope, appropriately thick. Of course, the fixtures may come down and the pipes might spring a leak but...hammer, sticky-tape, and a shonky repair job will have everything operational again within minutes.

Whack up a sign, hire a few young kids from the countryside, tell all your friends you've opened up a shop, light a few incense sticks and open up the doors for business.

Okay, so I might have over-simplified that slightly but there is a naivety that is at times admirable and refreshing. And at other times, it is just plain silly. I've witnessed 17 year-old girls open up a shoe shop in a crack in the wall that can't be seen by passers-by. On a larger scale, I've seen huge colonial villas in prime locations gutted, renovated, lavishly adorned in silk, lacquer, porcelain and bamboo and converted into restaurants. Months later, with no customers but still the full compliment of staff, they close.

On Saturday, I found that someone has established a little touch of Japan in an unlikely - and potentially unpropitious - location, way out of the Old Quarter by the side of a stagnant pond across from which is the Ngoc Ha community house. Other than those who know of the cut-through from Ngọc Hà Street to Đội Cấn Street, this is basically local traffic only and as far as I know the area is no 'little Tokyo'. I'm not sure of the target market and I'm not sure that the proprietor is either.

But in this location, the place has an edge, an open-air izakaya vibe and Hanoi alley chaos to boot.

The house specialty is purported in signage and menu to be bánh xèo, the fantastic rice flour pancake, yellow and crisp with a filling of shrimp, pork and bean sprouts. Here, the pictures and the product presented on the sizzling iron plate tell a different story, a crispy battered outside criss-crossed with mayonnaise, scattered with beni shōga and finely chopped spring onions. Inside, a filling of shredded cabbage and pork is hot and luscious.

In my mouth, it is the multi-syllabled flavour mish-mash of okonomiyaki; a creamy, rich, spicy, crunchy everything all-at-once - much more Japan than Vietnam.

In a clever up-sell just as I was wiping the mayo from my lips, the takoyaki were just being pronged out of their electric tray. I don't know about you but little fried balls of batter containing squid, when offered, are not to be refused.

I'm hoping this funky little take on Japan in the 'burbs of Hanoi is still open the next time I pass by.

Bánh Xèo Nhật Bản
23A Ngo 158 Ngọc Hà
Ba Đình District
Hanoi

Cooks, Books and Blogs

I'm promoting myself again.

As part of an initiative by Bookworm, Hanoi Grapevine and the Hanoi Cooking Centre called the 'Festival of Words', I'm going to be saying something about what is recorded in the pages of this blog, now an almost six year long chronicle of words about food.

I won't be alone; other people just as interested in eating, cooking and writing about food are my friends, Tracey Lister and Andreas Pohl, who will be bringing their perspective - as published cookbook authors - to the discussion.

Come along on Wednesday night. It should be fun. There will be food.

Details above.