Smoke from the countryside kitchen - Ap Bac Electronic Newspaper

(ABO) Children of the 4.0 era, born to parents in the city, do not know what the smell of kitchen smoke is like.

As for the little ones, when they opened their eyes they could see fields and gardens, chickens, and at the age of five or six they knew how to light the fire for their mother to cook rice. In the early mornings when the golden sunshine stretched out in front of the yard, they knew how to hug the bundles of coconut leaves, coconut shells, and longan firewood to dry for their mother; they knew how to rush out to the yard to gather firewood and bring it into the house when the sky turned dark and cloudy.

In the countryside, rich or poor families all have a small kitchen covered in black smoke, two or three cooks with dirty faces, pots and pans, and firewood neatly stacked in the corner of the kitchen.

In the countryside, every house has one or several piles of firewood, coconut firewood, longan firewood, dry coconut shells... using the excess branches, cutting them neatly, drying them, and stacking them neatly on the porch... On death anniversaries or New Year's Day, the children in the house are assigned to carry firewood for their mother; big firewood for her to cook cakes, stew meat, and small firewood for boiling water, making tea...

Back then, when my teacher taught me the poem Kitchen Fire (Bang Viet), I did not understand its full meaning. Now, when I accidentally read it again, the beautiful, sweet memories of a peaceful childhood come flooding back.

On weekends, I often take my little daughter back to her maternal grandparents' home. She runs around and plays, while I help my grandmother cook rice. Every now and then, I come across a pile of firewood that hasn't dried yet or has been caught in the rain. When I light the fire to boil water, the house fills with smoke. The smoke curls up and spreads out through the early morning sunlight. It's so beautiful, but the little girl covers her mouth and nose and runs around the house screaming. It's so painful, Mom!

Grandma hurriedly blew on the stove to make it burn brighter to reduce the smoke, while her mother sat cross-legged picking vegetables, looking at her, half wanting to scold her and half feeling sorry for her.

How could he understand? His mother now uses a gas stove but still misses the smell of smoke from her hometown kitchen.

How could he understand that in the afternoon after school, he would come home and see his mother busy in the kitchen, the smell of sour soup and braised fish mixed with the smell of smoke creating the smell of happiness and peace. After cooking, if there was a lot of charcoal, his mother would put in some sweet potatoes to eat while watching TV at night.

How could he know that the fish meat his mother put in the oven was much better than the fish his grandmother grilled on hot coals with the strong smell of smoke from the countryside kitchen?

In the cold days of September, in the afternoon, Mom would light the stove early, boil a full pot of water to bathe her hungry children. Mom would boil a pot of rainwater and pour it into a thermos, waiting for Dad to come back from visiting the garden to make a pot of warm tea.

Modern life, now every household, everyone lives surrounded by conveniences, electric rice cookers, induction cookers, gas stoves, ovens, etc. Just press a button and cooking becomes a breeze. No need to have your face dirty from soot every time you cook, no need to blow to make the fire burn bigger, modern kitchens are neat, clean, and fragrant. However, the people of the countryside, and above all, the generation of my mother and grandmother, still favor the simplicity of wood stoves, the smell of smoke, the smell of coal ash...

And even for people of the 8x generation like me, sometimes when I go somewhere far from home, just seeing someone's kitchen in the distance with smoke billowing in the golden afternoon sunlight, my heart feels strangely warm.

Humans and life are always moving, always developing to reach for modern conveniences. But there are things that no matter how much they grow up, how old they are, how mistreated by life, but when it comes to childhood memories, everything is still fresh and beautiful.

Wall Army

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