Ramblings about Quang Nam's meatball dishes

Meatballs are a traditional dish served at ancestral commemoration ceremonies in Quang Nam province. (Image for illustration purposes only)

It's usually only during ancestral commemorations that people make "mọc." It's a dish made from chicken offal mixed with wood ear mushrooms, vermicelli, eggs, and a few peanuts, along with spices. Everything is wrapped in banana leaves and tied at one end with a thin bamboo string. Then it's boiled or steamed.

To fully appreciate the flavor of this creative and delicious dish, it must be eaten hot. The rich but not greasy taste of chicken liver, the chewy texture of chicken gizzards (stomachs), and finely chopped wood ear mushrooms blend perfectly with the soft, translucent vermicelli noodles, along with the combination of egg and spices.

When opened, the package of meatballs is fragrant and colorful. The interesting thing is that the ingredients are very... ordinary. Often, it's even a way of saving resources, typical of people in Central Vietnam. But strangely, it creates an irresistible flavor.

Quang Nam province is famous for its delicious free-range chickens such as those from Tam Ky, Deo Le, and Dai Loc… Perhaps that's why people in Quang Nam like to use chicken and duck offal to make meatballs.

But if you're really stuck, you can use minced pork liver as a substitute. Use duck or pork instead of chicken. If you don't have mung bean vermicelli, you can substitute it with dried rice noodles...

Only the spices remain constant. Later, the people of Quang Nam added frog meatballs and eel meatballs. The recipe remains the same, but the meatballs have acquired new flavors.

For many people from Quang Nam living far from home, chicken meatball noodle soup on the offering tray evokes a sense of innocent childhood. Sitting at the table, adults would open the package of meatballs, cut them into many pieces, then prioritize offering them to the elderly and leaving some for the children. The meatballs are soft, rich, and fragrant, with no risk of choking on bones. Sometimes, the taste of a meatball eaten in childhood remains vividly remembered even decades later.

Once, when I was in Saigon attending a meeting of people from Quang Nam, someone jokingly asked: "So, Quang Nam 'mọc' (grown) and Hanoi 'mọc' (grown), which came first, the 'mọc' of the Thai people?" Many people argued that the Thai people came first because, from the mountains to the sea, from North to South, the Thai people are located at the headwaters!
The Thai people in the highlands of Northern Vietnam often use animal meat such as pork, chicken, squirrel, stream fish, and finely ground rice along with some spices like "mắc khén" (a type of spice), lemongrass, etc., then wrap it in dong leaves and boil it until cooked.

Thus, Quang Nam's "moc" dish is similar in form to the Thai "mooc" dish, but differs in ingredients and spices. Perhaps, following migration, each dish travels through different lands, and when it finds its place, it embraces the customs and traditions of that land to create its own unique flavors.

Could the Quang Nam meatball dish be part of that situation?

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