Discussing food trends

Text and photos: DUY KHÔI

Never before has home-grown cuisine consistently become a social media trend like it is now. From the popular mangosteen chicken salad to the flamboyant flower salad, the star fruit salad, soursop tea, and even crispy fried bougainvillea and stewed young durian... Video clips demonstrating preparation, cooking, and enjoyment of these dishes are flooding social media platforms, attracting hundreds of millions of views and interactions. The Southern Vietnamese culinary craze is raging, with one trend following another.

Shrimp and pork salad with mulberry leaves.

These new culinary trends also benefit farmers, as the prices of agricultural products, particularly unripe mangosteen and young custard apple, have increased significantly and are selling very well. As a result, Southern Vietnamese specialties have become more widely known, spreading to Central and Northern Vietnam, and even abroad.

Many people worry that this is just a temporary, unsustainable trend... Or there are concerns about its impact on the agricultural harvest in the Mekong Delta. But perhaps those concerns are "unrealistic," as recently, during the mangosteen ripening season, many people still sell them in large quantities at stable prices. Because these "trend-following" instances are insignificant compared to the total planted area and annual fruit production of orchards in the Southern region.

Thinking calmly, the Southern region of Vietnam in general, and the Mekong Delta in particular, is the capital of fruits and vegetables, and also the "cradle" of local cuisine made from flowers and leaves. For centuries, the dinner tables of Southern Vietnamese people have featured countless types of flowers: water hyacinth, water lily, and Sesbania grandiflora... and even seemingly wild leaves like water chives, water spinach, rice husk, burnt rice, cassava shoots, peach shoots, chayote shoots, and trumpet vine shoots... These flowers and leaves were not created for food, nor as specialties, but rather as a result of human exploration, discovery , and experience. This is not just about "adapting to circumstances" or "nature provides for everything," but also about creativity in Southern Vietnamese culinary culture. Clearly, centuries ago, our ancestors already knew how to "catch trends" and passed down to their descendants sophisticated eating styles such as water chives and water spinach dipped in fish sauce; water lilies eaten with fermented fish sauce; sour banyan fruit with raw fish sauce; and unripe bananas eaten with steamed fish sauce... All of these create the exquisite flavors of the South, a unique way of eating and enjoying cuisine.

Returning to the current culinary trends among young people, perhaps there's nothing to worry about as long as it's not offensive or harmful to health. Cuisine is a never-ending, boundless field of creativity. Who knows, perhaps this will add new, yet familiar, dishes to the list of Southern Vietnamese culinary specialties. Furthermore, this novelty and trendiness could create unique tourism products for visitors, offering seasonal delicacies!

Source link: https://baocantho.com.vn/en/ban-chuyen-trend-am-thuc-a160245.html