Anchovy salad from the Truong Giang River

While along the coast of Tam Thanh and Tam Tien, one can easily find the famous salad made from freshly caught, glistening herring, anchovy salad is rarely found in Nui Thanh - where the Truong Giang River flows quietly.

The anchovies used for this salad are not the kind caught from the sea; they are the kind caught in nets in the middle of the river near the estuary, only available during the transition from spring to summer.

The anchovies, freshly caught and translucent, were immediately taken to the mid-morning market, where my mother quickly bought them. The fish were cleaned, their heads removed, their backbones shortened, rinsed with vinegar, and then soaked in lemon juice.

The fish fillets, initially translucent to a milky white and fragrant, are mixed with lime juice, herbs, finely shredded mustard greens, good quality fish sauce, roasted peanuts, and a little crispy grilled rice paper before being served on a plate.

Sitting on the porch, before the late spring sun becomes too harsh, a cool breeze blows from the fields, carrying the fragrant scent of young rice, and I break off a piece of rice paper to scoop up a salad of fish. The refreshing green of the vegetables and the tender, sweet white fish that melts in your mouth, combined with the spicy aroma of chili and garlic, is enough to make you sigh with pleasure; you can only truly appreciate such exquisite human taste.

The deliciousness of anchovy salad lies in the hurried preparation: the fish caught hastily from the river nets – rushed for the market – quickly prepared so that the salad is served within about 30 minutes – and the hurried scramble to eat it before it's all gone – because my mother only makes one bowl of anchovies at a time, just enough to capture the freshness and satisfy the craving.

The flavor of anchovy salad also comes from the simple, unpretentious nature of its ingredients. Almost everything comes from the home garden, from the golden fish sauce that my mother fermented from last year's anchovy stock, to the roasted peanuts with their shells that she kept from the previous season, the herbs or mint that she grew under the mango tree, and the unripe bananas she got from the neighbors.

It also stems from my mother's love and indulgence – for her daughter who uses half her brain just to think about food, occasionally whispering in her mother's lap, "Mommy, I suddenly have a craving..." and the next day she'd see her mother rushing to the market to buy the ingredients and cook.

It also stems from my childhood memories, watching my father and the neighbors chatting and laughing boisterously around the salad my mother made, patting my head and saying I was too young to eat salad, and then wishing I would grow up quickly just so my "stomach would be strong enough" to try that salad that everyone eagerly awaited every spring.

And the sweetness of the rice salad also encapsulates my feelings for the river that flows silently into the sea year-round, and for the tiny fish and shrimp that have nourished me until now.

And so, as the first summer breezes pass, no matter where I go, I always want to return to that stretch of river, waiting to catch a basket of anchovies – my heart yearning and stirring with the same excitement as the river breeze that blows endlessly through the four seasons…

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/goi-ca-com-song-truong-giang-3153200.html