Flavor from Buckwheat Flowers

On the gray stone slopes of the Dong Van Stone Plateau, when the cool breeze season just touches, the whole highland seems to be covered with a new coat, the pink, purple, and white of buckwheat flowers. People often know that flower as a symbol of rustic beauty, proud among the mountains. But few people expect that behind those fragile petals is hidden a unique culinary treasure of the highland people.

Buckwheat cake.

When the flowers fade and the seeds ripen, people pick them, dry them, and grind them into flour to make buckwheat cakes, a simple dish that captivates tourists. The flour is kneaded with warm water, shaped into small cakes, and then steamed or baked over hot coals. The cakes are purple-brown in color, with a rich, slightly sweet taste and a faint scent of chestnuts. In the chill of the Stone Plateau, holding a hot cake in your hand, smelling the smoke mixed with the rustic aroma, everyone feels like they are tasting the scent of the earth and the sky of the border region.

From those tiny seeds, people also cook buckwheat porridge. The seeds are crushed, mixed with rice and then simmered. The porridge has a light purple color, a rich, fatty taste, a slight astringency on the tip of the tongue but a sweet aftertaste, making it unforgettable for anyone who has eaten it once. On winter nights in the highlands, a bowl of steaming porridge by the fire not only warms the heart but also encapsulates the love of people in the rocky outback.

With skillful hands, Mong women also turn this type of seed into baked buckwheat cakes with honey or green bean filling. The cakes are both chewy and crispy, the filling is golden and gives off an attractive aroma. It is a hometown gift that many tourists choose to bring back after each trip, as if carrying with them the flavor of the mountains.

Not only seeds, even buckwheat flowers have become a delicacy. Fresh flowers are picked early in the morning, washed, mixed with wild vegetables, roasted peanuts, sesame, lemon and chili, creating a cool, crunchy buckwheat flower salad, slightly astringent but mixed with fatty, fatty, slightly spicy taste - a strange but unforgettable feeling.

When the flower season is over, people pick the most beautiful flowers, dry them, and put them in a ceramic pot to make buckwheat flower tea. The warm cup of tea, light yellow water, sweet taste, a little bitter aftertaste, like the personality of the people of the rocky region: rustic but profound.

Buckwheat flower - a flower that seems to be just for viewing, is the source of life, the flavor that nourishes many generations of people in the highlands. Amidst the majestic mountains, dishes made from those tiny flowers and seeds not only satisfy the stomach, but also tell visitors stories about the creativity, ingenuity and love for their homeland of the people in the far North.

Hoang Anh

Source: https://baotuyenquang.com.vn/van-hoa/202511/huong-vi-tu-hoa-tam-giac-mach-84928f8/