A Xan (a highland commune in Tay Giang district) welcomed us with steep, winding mountain roads covered in red dust. It is known that in A Xan there is only one restaurant for visitors from afar to stop and eat, having breakfast with the specialty dish of porridge with pig intestines.
I have enjoyed Tay Giang specialties such as smoked meat, grilled meat in bamboo tubes, stir-fried stone frogs, stream fish, straw dishes (including meat, fish, and vegetables grilled in bamboo tubes), Co Tu people's rice cakes, dishes made from termites, and morinda wine... As for the porridge with pig intestines, this is the first time.
Following our friend, our group stopped at a small, simple restaurant with about five or seven tables but quite crowded. “I have fifteen guests, ma’am.” As soon as our friend finished speaking, the local owner hurried down to the kitchen. About ten minutes later, a tray of congee was brought out, still hot and steaming.
At first glance, the porridge in A Xan is no different from the one in the lowlands. But in a leisurely mountain morning, with a little bit of the cool mountain air, we "absorbed" the porridge with wild boar intestines even more with your detailed explanation. First, A Xan porridge is unique in that it is made from wild boar - a local breed of pig, small in body, raised by the people on the hills and mountains.
People catch medium-sized pigs (weighing about 10kg) and butcher them, and when customers request, they process them on the spot. Usually, fresh meat is kept during the day, limiting frozen meat because then the meat will no longer be pure and delicious.
It is known that from the local raw materials, people process many delicious dishes. Choose ribs and legs to cook sour bamboo shoots to eat with vermicelli to treat guests at noon. Lean meat from the two hind legs is steamed, thinly sliced and eaten with raw vegetables, ginger fish sauce...; grilled pork belly with wild betel leaves or boiled with salt and pepper and eaten with wild vegetables - dishes often enjoyed in the afternoon.
Porridge with offal only appears early in the morning because people immediately cook the offal with the pig after slaughtering it - that way the offal will be at its best. Another thing that makes porridge so appealing is the very clean way it is made.
Next, the rice used to cook the porridge must be seasonal rice grown on terraced fields and must be cooked on a red wood stove. The seller said that cooking porridge with offal is very hard. Offal includes all kinds of internal organs: liver, heart, small intestine, large intestine, stomach... After being cleaned, it is put into a pot of boiling water, add a little ginger, and when the soup is almost cooked, quickly scoop it out.
As for the porridge, cook it with the broth of the intestines, using the broth of the marrow bones and shoulder bones to make the porridge sweet and delicious. The porridge must be cooked until it is just thick enough. When the porridge is cooked, add the liquid blood and stir well. At this point, the porridge will turn ivory purple. Scoop a bowl of hot porridge with a plate of pig intestines, herbs, and ginger fish sauce, and the flavor of the mountains and forests will be condensed.
Leaving A Xan to return to the city, the Co Tu people saw us off with affectionate hands, loud laughter, and warm eyes. The strong aroma of sticky rice, of cassava sticky rice, of congee with offal… along with the yeast of morinda wine still lingered in the footsteps of the distant great forest.
If you have the opportunity to visit A Xan, early in the morning, after stretching to welcome a peaceful day away from the city, don't forget to sit in the middle of the forest mist, enjoy a bowl of highland porridge, it will surely bring you emotions about this place considered a remote borderland.
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