Every time I make cold noodles, as soon as I bring them to the table, everyone in the house scrambles to eat them all up. My mother praises me profusely: "The noodles are so delicious! You're so talented, you could open a noodle shop someday!"
Then I gained a reputation for making delicious cold noodles, and my neighbors praised them enthusiastically. Gradually, I became much more confident, a confidence I had always lacked, which worried my parents greatly.
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| Illustration photo: eva.vn |
Since then, I've been fascinated with making cold noodles. I always want to show off my cold noodle-making skills. No matter the season, whenever we have guests, I always try to impress them with my signature cold noodle dish.
That feeling of "my homemade cold noodles are delicious" stayed with me until I started working.
One day, I finished work late and didn't have much time, so I decided to try making my childhood favorite cold noodles for dinner. After making them and taking the first bite, I immediately froze, a terrible feeling creeping into my taste buds. It was all soy sauce, the MSG hadn't dissolved properly, and the noodles were clumpy...
I was unwilling to give up, so I tried again, but the result was still the same. I even tried several different types of soy sauce, but I still couldn't find the flavor from years ago. Feeling frustrated, I picked up the phone and called my sister even though it was late at night. On the other end of the line, my sister was silent for a moment, then suddenly burst out laughing.
I tried to suppress my irritation and listened to my sister's long monologue. Before I knew it, tears were streaming down my cheeks. It's hard to describe my feelings at that moment—a mix of emotion, guilt, and amusement.
It turns out that my whole family didn't like eating dishes made from wheat flour, especially cold noodles. But when we were little, everyone still tried to eat them, and even constantly praised how delicious they were, because my mother had told everyone that whoever ate a bowl of noodles and said it was delicious would be rewarded with 50 cents for pocket money.
My younger sister burst out laughing on the other end of the line: "Thanks to eating your noodles, I saved a lot of pocket money when I was little!" She said she used that money to buy lots of mechanical pencils with strawberry and cherry-shaped keychains, and many other types of pencils she loved. I was both amused and touched as she recounted those beautiful memories.
During my elementary school years, my academic performance was very poor, especially in Vietnamese language vocabulary; my pronunciation was terrible. As a result, I gradually became bored with school and afraid to go to class, afraid of the teacher unexpectedly calling on me to answer questions, and afraid of being ridiculed by my classmates.
Back then, my parents believed in corporal punishment as a form of education . I was often beaten for poor academic performance. But that was my nature; the more I was beaten and scolded, the less I wanted to study, and the more I gave up.
One time, my cousin Lam, because he frequently got math problems wrong, was often scolded and punished by my uncle. Lam was a poor student, even worse than me. Seeing this, my sense of "justice" flared up. Although I wasn't much better at math myself, I was determined to "save" him. I spent the whole afternoon explaining the problems to Lam. Eventually, Lam learned to do some simple problems.
My uncle praised me. My aunt even bought me a pack of cookies as a reward. From then on, I especially enjoyed going to my cousin's house, mainly to tutor Lam and receive praise and rewards.
After learning about it, my mother started to change the way she treated me.
My mother started praising me constantly. But besides teaching my cousin, I didn't have anything else remarkable to praise. So, she kept repeating how well I taught my cousin. I heard it so often that I got tired of it.
Then there was the matter of making cold noodles. Looking back, it seems that after I started making cold noodles, my academic performance gradually improved. I became more confident. Of course, that also came with the constant praise from my mother over the years.
My mother's praise even "awakened" my little artistic talent. For two consecutive years, I won first prize in the school's wall newspaper competition. I gradually overcame my insecurities and began to enjoy learning.
The next day, I called my mother. I didn't mention my sister's story about "50 cents a bowl of noodles." I just said that I had made my childhood cold noodles again the night before, but they didn't taste as good as they used to.
Then I unexpectedly asked my mother, "Was the cold noodle dish I made when I was little really that delicious?"
Without hesitation, my mother replied, "Of course it's delicious. How many young children like you know how to make cold noodles? And you've been doing it for so many years. Every time you make noodles, you always let your younger sibling eat first. Even at such a young age, you help me serve guests so I don't have to work so hard..."
My mother kept talking incessantly, every word and phrase filled with praise and pride for me.
"My mother doesn't like noodles. My whole family doesn't like noodles either. The cold noodles I make aren't actually that good" - perhaps this will forever remain a secret between my mother and me.
My mother doesn't want me to know her secret. And I don't want her to know that I already know it. Let's just keep that secret as a beautiful memory between my mother and me…
Source: https://www.qdnd.vn/van-hoa/van-hoc-nghe-thuat/bat-mi-lanh-tuoi-tho-1046429
