Food

Whenever I crave a tasty, spicy, fresh, and healthy breakfast, I turn to clam rice (cơm hến). If the famous Huế beef noodles were the king, clam rice would be a queen in disguise to people in Huế –  the former capital of Việt Nam. One will need more than two dozen ingredients to make […]

A Quát is a kind of ritual dumpling that is only made of glutinous rice and wrapped in tiger grass leaves. They are popular among the Pa Cô and Tà Ôi communities. These A Quát dumplings often come in pairs and are tied together with banana midrib.

Perhaps lotus is the only flower which could bring serenity and purity to my heart. It even cultivates in me a habit of waiting for summer every single year because this season comes with pretty lotus blossoms and tasty delicacies made from different parts of lotus. My neighbor, dì Na, cooks lotus rice every summer […]

The Huế people who underwent many natural disasters as well as wars and even epidemics, learnt how to appreciate mediocre foods, to include different kind of edible wild vegetables into their meals, and to reduce food waste. Some of them even took extra steps when using food scraps to make delicacies which were so mouth-watering […]

Once an American friend teased me that I was too salty, I almost wanted to fire back, “Well, I’m also chua cay (which means “sour and spicy”, or “unpleasant”) because I have been eating too much dưa and mắm since I was a little girl,” but I held it back as I didn’t think he […]

Nấm tràm (bitter bolete) might be favored by Huế people as much as truffle is to many French gourmets although it is way cheaper than the truffle. Nấm tràm’s season is between summer and autumn and it only appears after a few days of heavy rain. Nấm tràm is very bitter, especially its skin, which […]

Markets in Huế are flooded with pomelos now as these fruits are in their season. I love eating this juicy fruit and love its fragrant peel as well. I use its peel to make hair treatment and even snack. I’ve recently made sugar-coated pomelo peel using Auntie Tuyết’s recipe. This is a great snack to […]

When I was a little girl, my neighbors had an ambarella tree. I sometimes came over and asked for some. My neighbors would use a long bamboo stick with a hook at one end to pick up the ambarella fruits for me. I loved it best when they harvested the ambarella fruits for sale. It […]