A bowl of freshwater crab soup

Crab soup. Photo: Illustration.

Those were sweltering summer days, people drenched in sweat, their energy seemingly depleted. On a typical summer day, every family's meal usually included some kind of soup to help digest the rice. And crab soup became an excellent choice.

Catching freshwater crabs is incredibly easy, especially in rice paddies. When harvesting, just bring a plastic bucket and keep an eye out for them while you harvest.

As soon as they spotted crabs wriggling under their feet, they quickly grabbed them and put them into a bucket.

In the hot weather, the field crabs are lazy to forage, lying still in the rice paddies and burrows to avoid the heat. I remember that whenever the crabs appeared, the rice fields would be bustling with activity during the harvest.

People called out to each other, especially the children, who cheered loudly when they saw the crabs. None of them were afraid of the mud; they bent down at the base of the rice stalks, gently used their hands to grab the bewildered crabs, and neatly put them into the bucket.

In the countryside, both adults and children can tell the difference between male and female crabs just by looking at them. After catching the crabs, they'd put them in a large basin, stir them a few times with chopsticks or a thick stick to "grind" them, then rinse them thoroughly with plenty of water until clean. In the days before grinders, stone mortars and pestles were still the "true love."

Every household had a huge stone mortar and pestle carved from the trunk of an old eucalyptus tree. After separating the shells and carapace, the crabs were put in and pounded. While the parents pounded, the children used grapefruit thorns to scoop out the roe and put it separately in a small bowl.

The small bowl of crab roe, though seemingly insignificant, is the soul of the entire pot of soup. Crab soup tastes delicious with any kind of vegetable. But perhaps it's best when cooked with wild greens from the garden.

A mixed vegetable salad usually consists of a handful of spinach, jute leaves, sweet potato leaves, bottle gourd, etc.

When the pot of crab broth comes to a boil, add the vegetables, then add the crab roe, and then remove from the heat. The golden, rich crab roe enhances the visual appeal of the soup.

To fully appreciate the refreshing coolness of crab soup, it must be allowed to cool completely. To enhance the flavor, it's served with pickled eggplant. A sip of the soup, a crunchy bite of the eggplant, and before you know it, the pot of rice is gone.

After the harvest, to make the meal more appealing, my mother went to the market to buy a few hundred grams of rice vermicelli to boil and make noodles. She also boiled crab broth, seasoned it to taste, and added a pinch of sour cherry tomatoes for a refreshing touch.

I went to the garden to pick some scallions, cilantro, and mint. A bowl of crab noodle soup was served, and the whole family gathered around. Perhaps, in my life, that was the most delicious bowl of crab noodle soup I've ever eaten.

More than twenty years have passed in the blink of an eye. In my hometown, the area for rice cultivation has shrunk, partly because people are no longer enthusiastic about agriculture , and partly because they have to exchange land for industrial zones, factories, or other, more productive crops.

Freshwater crabs are still available in the summer, but it's rare to see people catching them. For those far from home, they remain a cherished, pure image that reflects the passage of time in their lives...

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/bat-canh-cua-dong-3135366.html