My hometown Ca Mau does not have many fruits with economic value, export value like other provinces in the West, but there are fruits that have the value of memories, of the soul of the countryside, which people born in the 80s and before consider as specialties. I remember back then, every afternoon we gathered in groups of three or five to pick banyan and annatto. I was shy, only taking the branches close to the bank, so I always got less fruit than the boys who were good at climbing high and wading in ponds. When we got the "spoils of war", the ripe fruit, we would pick it and eat it right on the way home, while eating and talking about the weather. The slightly ripe fruit was "packed" and put in our stomachs, carried home to help with the rice jar, only after a few days would it taste good.

Adults told me not to hold a knife for fear of cutting my hand, so I used a spoon to scrape the skin of the custard apple clean, mixed it with sugar and crushed ice, sometimes added a little cow's milk, and ate it with gusto. Every time my younger brother ate custard apple, his mother scolded him for spitting out the seeds everywhere, and for stepping on them, they stuck to the ground and were hard to sweep. That fragrant, sweet, and rich flavor must be deeply engraved in the memory of everyone who has ever enjoyed this "specialty".

As for the banyan fruit, everyone in my family loves it and makes many dishes. My father eats it raw with fish sauce; when the fruit is just ripe, I invite my friends over to slice it and dip it in fish sauce and sugar; when the fruit is too ripe, my mother cooks it with sour lotus soup, sometimes with braised fish, the aroma wafts throughout the house.

Before the land was converted to a square, almost every house in the countryside had guava and star fruit trees around their houses. My house was the same. Star fruit was sour, so we rarely ate it. We just liked to look at the tiny purple star fruit flowers intertwined on all the big and small branches. After just a few showers, the flower buds bloomed, the wind blew all over the yard, and we gathered the star fruit petals to play house with each other. As for the guava trees behind the house, the fruits had just lost their astringency when we picked them all, and each fruit was covered with fingernail marks that we checked daily. I remember one time when I went to the garden to pick guava and encountered a wasp nest, my little sister was chased all the way to the ground, so much so that she had to dive into a pond to escape. She was upset for days because her face was swollen and no one let her play the main role in the play "Nguyet Ho Vuong" that she had spent a whole month learning the lyrics and performance.

Countryside fruits always evoke peaceful memories of each person.

Unexpectedly, wild, rustic trees such as custard apple, mangrove, star fruit, guava... all contain ingredients that are beneficial to health. Ingredients in the parts of the custard apple tree help improve health, reduce vision problems, and help cool the body... Mangrove fruit has anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving effects, while mangrove leaves help treat urinary retention and stop bleeding. Star fruit helps aid digestion, prevent cardiovascular disease, is good for vision and controls blood sugar. Guava is good for people with high blood pressure, helps reduce coughs, colds, and beautifies the skin... Perhaps because we ate a lot of this fruit when we were young, we had enough strength to spend all day in the sun, bathe in the rain, swim in the river, in the pond... but still became strong and weak.

Every time I go on a work trip, I don’t want to leave any place with these kinds of trees. The nostalgic feeling comes back to the poor but simple and peaceful countryside where the children’s snacks are just wild fruits or homegrown fruits but still delicious. Now at the city market, every now and then there are people from the countryside selling custard apples, guavas, mangroves, star fruit… Many people stop by to buy them, showing their interest as if to soothe their beautiful memories. I stop to admire them, then bring them home to introduce to my children at home. That this was my mother’s favorite dish when she was little, although it is not as valuable as the fruits today, it contains a part of my childhood. The little ones just pick them up and put them down without knowing how to eat them.

Decades have passed, now when we meet our old friends, we keep talking about climbing trees, wading in ponds to pick fruit, and then in the afternoons, we bring them along to eat while playing jump rope, hide and seek, throwing stones... With the development of society, the fruits of the countryside may gradually be forgotten, but they will always be specialties of the homeland, living in the peaceful, beautiful memories of each person./.

Dream of the Ordinary

Source: https://baocamau.vn/dac-san-trai-que-a1719.html