Stickyrice

The Chicken in Vietnam

It's not uncommon to see a chicken in the manic Hanoi traffic, scratching in a drain or legging it across an alley, clucking and comical. Keeping chickens in this highly urbanised and densely populated city is still quite a typical practice. On a daily basis I see them riding pillion on motorbikes to market, squashed and squawking in cages and, indeed from market, individually, more subdued or dead

In specious random 'stickyrice surveys', on the question "have you ever killed a chicken?", the vast majority of respondents say yes. Those who respond no do so with the qualification "but I have helped to hold it down." Remember that Hanoi is essentially made up of folk from the provinces, where the farm may not yet be one full generation removed. These people know how to tie a good knot, lead a buffalo to graze, light a blazing fire and take a chicken through its last life stage and onto a plate. A genteel 'Hanoian', not to mention a city-boy foreigner would likely be all thumbs (or minus them) attempting any one of these practical tasks.

Chickens normally get it in the neck. There is no axe, chopping block or chicken running headless into backyard palings here. Precision is required to puncture the main artery so as to make it quick for the bird and to get a spurting flow of blood into a waiting bowl. Stark and messy in the bowl, this is the first of many products to be obtained from the killing. After feathers are plucked, normally with the assistance of hot water, the bird is gutted and cleaned. Hearts, giblets, kidneys and lungs are recovered. Hens' bits like fallopian tubes and partly formed eggs eventually make it to table, too. In fact, in phở gà houses lòng trứng non is an expensive side option to the standard soup.

The feet, neck and head are also paid respect. Chickens are important on ceremonial occasions in Vietnam, often placed on family altars as an offering to ancestors on death anniversaries and on other important days in the lunar calendar. After emerging from a simmering pot, in a procedure not unlike trussing, the bird is manipulated into a dignified pose on the plate, upright and proud as if it were still alive, wings in the flapping position. One foot is sometimes broken from the cooked bird and presented at the fortune teller's for a reading in a tradition known as bói chân gà (predict foot of chicken). The way the claws have curled and the markings on the skin can determine events to befall the family in the next lunar month or year.

Any good news is way too late for the chicken, of course. Whole flocks are being taken to with sharp implements in the markets, homes and restaurants of Hanoi as I write.

So, though chickens are often the subject of ridicule in life, in death, at least in Vietnam, they are accorded a degree of appreciation for the many edible parts they provide and the functions they fulfil.

Watching the Pork Vendor

Around the markets in Hanoi, I see certain people all the time.

This elderly roasted pork (thịt lợn quay) vendor, for instance. Once or twice a week, I have reason to be gawking at her. I purchase my dog's food from a typical Vietnamese cơm bình dân (rice-plate restaurant) located right by her low-rise chopping platform. As I sit waiting on my bike for the order to be packaged, I hone in on her activities for a minute or two.

She is squatted on a plastic stool so low that the kinetics of my body will not permit my posterior to reach that far down. We are apparently of the same species but our dexterity of limb and centre of gravity are poles apart. She is a crab and I am a lumbering clod. She scuttles about adroitly on her haunches whereas if I were that low it would be because I had fallen and would need to be flipped, helped up and set on my way again.

She's dealing in pork belly which is almost a food group in Vietnam, not to mention the rest of Asia. These hunks that she's thrown down on her newspapered butcher's stand are roasted with a rind of crackling, crisp and puckered like bubble-wrap. If ever I get to request a last meal, just pile my plate up high with that. No meat, just the fat.

In Hanoi, thịt lợn quay is bought by weight, cut in thick slices, then bite-size chunks. Each one is a study in layers of flesh, whiter near the rind and pinkish lower down, interspersed with glorious fat - prettier than a rainbow. My vendor has been weilding her cleaver so long that it is almost an extension of her arm. She hardly has to look as it comes down with a hefty crack and thud. What must be permanently greasy hands gather the meat on the cleaver blade before it is slid into plastic bags to take away. A side of pickled shallots (củ kiệu) is a normal accompaniment. My preferred beverage pairing is cold Bia Hanoi.

I like this lady alot. I like what she is hawking way too much. I like that she is easy to smile. I like her cackle. And I like the way she cuts off slithers for the alley's dogs and feeds them by hand.

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. 

Feeling Wintery

The coats are out of mothballs and at the dry-cleaners. Short sleeves on the motorbike are reserved for sunny lunch times only. The drier air is starting to tighten the skin and crack the lips. The autumn buzz on the streets of Hanoi is a sign that the summer hibernation is officially over and Tết (the lunar new year) is closing in. Ten years of existence here and not only are my southern hemisphere bio-rhthyms all arse-up but I'm also book-ending my years with talk of lunar new years rather than Christmases.

But...whatever my expat derangement, it's feeling decidedly wintery in this part of the world and time to jack on a few kilograms to ensure I survive. It's hearty food season and I intend to participate.

Starting with a kind of rice cake that sits somewhat discus-heavy on its way through the digestive tracts once swallowed. Known as chè con ong, this snack is a substantial one - not the kind of sweet treat you might "leave room for" at the end of a meal but rather one you would need to by-pass the entire meal for. 

While the weight of this dessert may not be so subtle, the flavours are simple and clean and the texture is moist and spongy. The colour is more than reminiscent of chocolate. But chocolate it aint.

Sticky rice is cooked in its normal manner, the vendor told me. Ginger is pressed for juice and set aside. In a separate saucepan, water and sugar go around together until they start to thicken and colour. Interestingly, the vendor at whose kiosk I was sampling from would not allow me to interject the word caramel into her explanation. I didn't push the point as she was making me feel rather as if I was privileged to be hearing the recipe in the first place. I thought I was showing appropriate deference but there is a school ma'am-ish demeanour about some Hanoi women that I still find slightly off-putting, even after 10 years.

So the sugar and water colouring to honey brown is not caramel, to which the cooked sticky rice and ginger juice is added. On a very low heat, the mixture resembling porridge gently bubbles away.

Pressed into a mould in some instances, the cooled mixture here is shaped by hand into a disc, scattered with sesame seeds and wrapped in plastic. Other variations on the theme include cốm xào (young sticky rice cooked with sugar and shredded coconut) and chè đậu xanh (mung beans done similarly).

All are fine and filling for winter but be warned; just a taste test of all three rendered me passive and defenceless for much of the remainder of last Saturday.

Thanh Ha Street Market
left hand side, heading toward Nguyen Thien Thuat St

The Market as Culture

Markets are like museums to me; a series of exhibits, installations and performances that stimulate, engross and compel. They are like theatre, improvisational theatre where the audience participates in the drama. Spirited one act dialogues take place over quality and always over price. This is a kind of operatic bluff, with rising crescendos of argument juxtaposed with gentle smiling contentment at deal's end. Occasionally it is physical and comic: heated pushing and shoving over oranges on scales or the end of a broomstick raised then thwacked across the shoulder blades of a rival vendor trying to steal a customer. Moments of magic for this theatre-goer!

Walking the markets is also a tactile experience in Hanoi. Scope still exists here for customers to scoop up a handful of black beans, feel their smoothness on finger tips before letting them drop one by one back into their paper sack. Removing the outer lettuce leaves, plucking out a wilting sprig of morning glory, even grabbing a hunk of pork for closer inspection - this kind of interactivity, which brings to mind the 'touch and feel box' for kids at the museum, is much more encouraged than admonished. Try before you buy is the prevailing practice when it comes to fruit, with segments of clementine, slivers of mango or single lychees or rambutans offered as evidence of the degree of ripeness, sweetness or indeed sourness. I've seen the locals openly munch on the vendor's supply of nuts while their own are being packaged for purchase.

The sets that provide the back-drop for these everyday human dramas are normally stock-standard makeshift arrangements built with scraps of timber, tarpaulins and rope, sheet metal and plastic. But if one can remove one's concentration for a moment from the action and props of the narrative, sometimes a step back will provide a vista which is majestic and ancient, an almost cinematic moment where the story matters little compared to the grandeur of the scenery. An austere doorway, suitably weathered by age, or the ornate entrance to the Đền Hội Thống (Temple of the Governor), gilded in yellow and inscribed in Chinese characters, add another aesthetic dimension to the spectacle of the market.

Further along, abstract installations that challenge one's intellect and experience may be on display. Tiny freshwater crabs (cua đồng) being pounded alive in a giant mortar and pestle or dozens of frogs captive in a net all jumping up and down but not in time, must surely qualify as avant-garde performance art. And what of the abstruse sculpture of orange-barked timber, rose petal, areca nut and knife - isn't that something to wonder at, ask questions about?

Could it be that the Asian wet market is linked to ritual, myth and ceremony, clearly within the realm of what are traditionally the bastions of a nation's culture, the art gallery and museum.

In Vietnam, given the choice, the market may well be the best place to obtain the fundamentals of the culture.

A Point on Vietnamese Ingredients

While it may get squeezed into the margins of the cooking, lifestyle and travel pages by Mediterranean and other Asian cuisines, Vietnamese food does now hold significant international currency. Even non-foodie types could probably name one key ingredient from the country's diverse kitchen.

Phở noodles, fish sauce and fresh intensely flavoured herbs are some of the hallmarks. Summer rolls (gỏi cuốn) and bánh mì are dishes that are commonly available in cities all over the world where the Vietnamese have taken up residence. They've crossed over the cultural barriers and do not seem any longer to belong just to the Vietnamese.

Other aspects of the cuisine here are much maligned. Dog meat is an obvious example which gets a pretty unanimous thumbsdown from the food press and food tourists alike. It's a place that most westerners simply do not want to go (for the record, yes I have...) but they almost certainly do want to express their abject horror about the practice of eating dog. In general, in fact, in amongst all the gushing about Vietnamese food and how healthy and fresh it is, there does tend to be inordinate attention drawn to the exotica in the food scene here. As an expat who blogs about food here, the pieces I read that mention the dog-meat, the insects, the snake, the aphrodisiac properties of the rice wine, the eating of endangered species, the smelly dipping sauces...the list goes on...are really beginning to grate. The Vietnamese will readily admit, partly in jest, that they will eat anything with arms and legs except chairs and tables.

This angle on Vietnamese cuisine is a cliché. It needs a rest.

Far more interesting are some of the vegetables found prepped and ready for cooking in the wet markets here. In Hoi An recently, I was greeted at one vendor's stall by bitter melon and bamboo shoot, ingredients I occasionally eat yet rarely cook. In my mind, these examples of simple and fairly omnipresent produce are just as worthy of a few column inches as the dog meat.

The bitter melon (khổ qua) is not to everyone's taste and, I hasten to add, would possibly elicit a more dramatic over-reaction from the palate than dog, insect or snake. As the name suggests, it is rather severe in the mouth. Some of the Vietnamese dishes I've eaten that have bitter melon as the feature ingredient are khổ qua xào trứng (bitter melon stir-fried with egg) and canh khổ qua nhồi thịt (stuffed bitter melon broth).

Much blander on the tongue is bamboo shoot (măng). When fresh it is used in stir-fries and, fresh or reconstituted from dry, it is frequently seen in soups paired with poultry. Sliced thinly in a bowl of bún măng vịt (duck and bamboo noodle soup) or in a slow cooked soupy stew of pigs feet (măng hầm giò heo), both traditional northern dishes, bamboo shoots can be bought in big tubers, sliced or shredded, dried young or old.

So if there is a point I'm trying to make here, I suppose it is that between the fame and the exotica of Vietnamese cuisine lie some more austere elements worthy of at least a mere mention.  

Hội An Market Shot

The old port town of Hội An is picturesque, no doubt. Though somewhat gentrified these days with piped muzak and coloured lanterns, its streets still reflect the town's historic merchant past if one turns one's head the right way at the right time. It might be a bicycle leaned up against the back of the old Japanese bridge. Or ochre walls streaked with mould, on which hang birdcages and a bouquet of wilting flowers. Moments and vignettes to dwell on.

For a second or two.

Before I get me to the market.

The People of the Market

On the surface of it, a market is a place of base exchange. Money and goods change hands, apples get put in bags, coins are rung up in a till. Stalls open and close like the sun rises and sets. Producers deliver fresh and rubbish collectors take away rotten. Not everything gets sold and no-one is making millions. To a fly on the market wall, all that happens here is essentially routine, groundhog day.

But as I said, that is on the surface what it appears like. Under the guise of buy and sell, subtleties exist. Much is going on in the minds of the players in this drama. Much can be interpreted from their behaviour about what the market means to them.

A chorus of regular shoppers walk up and down with direction and a shopping list. Seemingly ever-present, they come prepared with baskets and re-usable bags, a mind sharp with memorized prices and family recipes, seriously ready for transactions and all that they entail. Disagreements about price, weight or the ripeness of the last purchase could strain the relationship with the vendor or, conversely, successful kitchen episodes could be communicated for future reference. Cordial and business-like, these shoppers are in the majority. They stream through the market in ebbs and flows, exiting laden and intent on the next phase in their day, the unpacking and organising of the purchases in larder, fridge, freezer, fruit bowl and the inevitable rattling of pots and pans.

Then there are the vendors, major characters of good and evil, conflicted and capable of heinous acts though rarely do they carry them out. If one more customer touches my plums, they say, I'm going to beat them upside of the head with my weighing plate. There are many threats like this, mostly said in the head. On the outside, jolly smiles and endless banter greet and serve. On the inside is Basil Fawlty, on the verge.

Complex, they have a soft side, too. This is normally reserved for their produce. It is common knowledge that enthusiastic gardeners talk to their plants, believing it will make them grow. I have no evidence that greengrocers or fishmongers do the same but I have seen intimacy between man (and woman) and fruit. An exhalation of breath and a deft rub with a cloth on an apple. The tender unwrapping of custard apple or mango from paper, a twist in the hand to check for bruises or lacerations.

The fishmonger loves his fish enough to exhibit them as installations, laying in formation with parsley tendrils artfully placed about. The striving for symmetry in the display of fruit, vegetables or fish or the juxtaposition of colour is thoughtful merchandising. To the purple eggplant he says, you look good next to those raw green olives.

And it is this thinking that connects with another type found in markets; those with more than a transaction in mind, more than their next meal in mind...in fact they may have more like their next month's meals somewhat in mind. Easily identified, these people want pictures of the produce...from several angles. They ask curly questions and may scribble down notes. They wax lyrical...about brocolli or artichokes. They appreciate what the vendor is doing. They say the lemons look beautiful. And they mean it.

These people are the food aesthetes and I am one of them.

Photos taken at Athens Central Market, October 2010.

Vegetable Conundrum

The market is for shopping.

I go with a notebook and a camera. Sometimes a shopping list. I never know what's going to eventuate, what I'm going to see or buy, who'll be shouting, whether someone will be taking to another with a poison word or a broomstick. It can be an adventure so I like to be prepared.

Last weekend I spotted what looked like alien anorexic white legs, out of which sprouted green leafery and fine pink knee roots, swinging over the edge of my vendor's veg display. Immediately, I start prodding, shooting, asking dumb questions. Known as rau rut and apparently used in lau (hot pots), I started digging about online when I got home.

That's when things started to get technical in a sexified kind of way. Botannical terms can be misconstrued if one has a puerile sense of humour. I read about spongy-fibrous swollen internodes and solitary spikes, parts of the plant were described as hairless, erect, sterile and bisexual.

And funnily enough, I'd still quite like to know what can be done with this vegetable ... in the kitchen!

Temple Fuel

Between temple gazing in Siem Reap, and indeed to fuel the body for further assaults on the temples, we tuk-tuked back to town to the Old Market to rustle up a feed. I think I've mentioned before that, while I'm normally neurotically but subtly manipulating the itinerary on holidays to suit my selfish interest in food, these temples deserve more than grudging respect and a photograph or two.

They are truly relics to marvel at.

But as I happened to have the camera with me at lunch time, I saw no harm in pointing it around a bit. In the market's dark interior, some food sights came into view. A counter spread with a range of snacks presided over by a slightly bemused young girl unused to dealing with foreigners got my camera clicking. For another afternoon stumbling about the ruins, it would be necessary to graze my way across the snack options.

Fresh spring rolls, fat ones, filled with lettuce, herbs, noodles and thin slices of fatty pork seemed as good a place as any to start. Dipped in a snippy sauce not unlike nuoc cham in Vietnam, we were beginning in familiar territory. Further along, piles of noodles, white, cream and brown, were being fried up on the spot with a crunchy mix of bean shoots, cabbage and greens. Fried riceflour pancakes were laid overlapping, a yellow fan across a large section of the counter surface. There were fried spring rolls too, brown skinned with minimal filling but so satisfying in that know-it's-not-good-for-me kind of way.

But wait a minute. Where am I? This market stall menu is of southern Vietnam. Or at least heavily influenced by it.

Except for one item. A flattened rice flour dumpling filled with a green vegetable mix, fried up to be crispy and brown on the outside and served with vivid red chili sauce. I'm not sure of its origins but I was fairly satisfied with its taste.

The four of these discs I deposited gave me the edge later on in the afternoon when climbing over the rubble of another temple.