In my warm winter dreams, I still hear the sweet call of “Mrs. Cach! Are you going to pop rice?”. From that moment until now, whether awake or dreaming, I still look forward to a season of popping rice to know that winter has returned.
In my hometown, there is a custom of using the first child's name to call the parents. Sometimes I wondered and my grandmother just smiled and said that people saw the grandchild coming back from the city so they called her instead of the mother. But that's not true, later I learned that this way of calling represents the emotional bond between parents and children in the family as a continuation of generations, so when I heard my mother's name, I immediately knew that people were calling my grandmother to come along.
Green rice flakes is a dish that we children always eagerly await because it is a sign that Tet has come... ( Internet photo )
I remember on cold winter days or just before Tet, to prepare sweets and cakes for the children and grandchildren, my grandmother would prioritize popping green rice first. She would carefully choose the stuff to pop from fragrant rice stored for Tet, measure it into several cans of cow's milk and then quickly go in the direction the person had just called. Just waiting for that moment, I lifted the blanket, followed the shortcut through the neighbor's field and ran out. The children were already standing outside the popping workshop.
Uncle Dung's explosives workshop was located right at the end of the village. It said workshop but there was no sign at all. Looking inside, one could only see a group of people sitting around a fire, chatting animatedly, waiting for their turn.
Uncle Dung was spinning the popcorn placed on the stove, sweating profusely. The popcorn had to be spun continuously, evenly and quickly. This step required strength, endurance, and agility to ensure that each grain of rice popped evenly until the timer rang, indicating that the batch of green rice was ready to be baked.
I still remember that moment, like a sublimation, when Uncle Dung stretched out to carry the explosive out of the kitchen, put it in the net bag, while his foot kicked the explosive and his hand hit the trigger on the lid. A loud “bang” sound rang out as tens of thousands of pure white rice grains flew into the net. While the adults were still engrossed in their conversation, the children were silent, overwhelmed by an indescribable beauty. They could not believe that the tiny, plump rice grains in the blowpipe could be so light and fluffy as to float up like clouds.
No one knows when rice flakes first appeared, but they are a nostalgic snack of the countryside. ( Internet photo )
Usually, my family doesn't ask someone to caramelize the rice on the spot. I carried the big bag of popped rice home on my head. My grandmother told me to caramelize as much as I could eat.
I sat by the fire waiting for my grandmother to cook the green rice in a large pan with sugar and some thinly sliced ginger until it thickened. I watched her use a pair of chopsticks to stir the green rice evenly so that the sugar was evenly applied to the grains, sticking them together with a layer of sweet and fragrant sugar, then pouring the pan of sugared green rice into a wooden mold and rolling it out evenly. The green rice had hardened and cooled down, she used a knife to divide the green rice into small pieces so that the green rice could be held in the hand. I waited for the moment the green rice cooled, only a few minutes, but I was restless. Those few minutes, I will remember for the rest of my life.
Nowadays, children rarely know about popping rice, and rarely know about the cold and hunger in winter, so craving a pack of popped rice is normal, but for old people like us, it is a happiness. A simple but extremely lasting happiness when feeling the sweet aroma of sugar, the slight warmth of ginger mixed with the crunchiness of the rice grains of childhood, which when grown up, no matter how far away, we will always remember.
Lam Lam
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