Delicious dishes made with dried shrimp paste.

The traditional method of catching krill is using gill nets. However, buying gill nets is expensive, and the boats are also large, so few people afford them.

Fishermen with limited capital choose a "quick fix" method. This means rowing a boat a few hundred meters from the shore, waiting for the moon to rise, and when the shrimp gather in clumps under the moonlight, they scoop them up with a net. It's called "scooping," but it's difficult, not like scooping soil. With decisive and quick movements, each net can only yield about a kilogram. If clumsy and slow, the net will only yield half a handful at most.

The ingredients for preparing the stir-fried fresh shrimp paste with tomatoes are ready to eat.

The krill, sometimes called sea shrimp because its shape resembles a miniature shrimp, several tens of times smaller. The name "sea shrimp" sounds fancy, but krill are actually very thin, like toothpicks. Their food consists of plankton. Their transparent bodies give the impression of having no meat, but when cooked, they offer a very rich flavor.

Shrimp paste is mixed with salt, squeezed to extract the liquid, sun-dried for a few days, then pounded in a mortar until smooth to create a concentrated, savory shrimp paste that can be stored for a long time. Eating bun rieu (Vietnamese noodle soup) with a little shrimp paste is... you can't look anyone in the eye, you'll just slurp it up noisily. The liquid extracted from the shrimp paste, sun-dried, turns into a light pink sauce. This sauce, lightly seasoned and poured over fresh noodles, is incredibly delicious; you can easily devour several bowls without getting tired of it. And dipping warm, plain white rice pancakes (without added shrimp or meat) into this sauce is simply irresistible!

Fresh shrimp paste is mixed with a little coarse salt, placed in a sealed jar, and left for a few days to make quick-salted shrimp paste. When this type of salt is opened, the aroma is incredibly strong, waking up the whole neighborhood, unlike other types of fish sauce which have a more subtle, quiet scent. Scoop it into a bowl, mix in some chili powder and a little crushed ginger, and eat it with rice crackers or hot rice – oh my, it's incredibly delicious! Children who don't like sitting at the table prefer to grab a large piece of rice cracker, spread the shrimp paste evenly over it, and run out to the street to eat it.

This month the weather is sunny, so villagers often dry shrimp in front of their houses or on the eaves. If there's a lot of shrimp, they dry them on the beach. With the right amount of sun-dried shrimp, even a handful eaten raw is delicious. Mixing dried shrimp with lettuce, rice noodles, herbs, onions, and a little fish sauce and garlic makes a flavorful seafood salad. It's a popular dish for ancestral worship ceremonies, entertaining guests, or simply enjoying a meal together in the evening. Saigon residents with "sea roots" especially love dried shrimp roasted with spices. Storing it in a glass jar keeps the aroma strong for months, making it a delightful snack for the whole family. A bowl of roasted shrimp at a city meal evokes a familiar feeling of a fishing village.

In the mountainous regions of Ba To, Son Ha, Tra Bong… ( Quang Ngai province ), every household stores several jars of dried shrimp paste bought in mid-summer to eat until Tet (Lunar New Year). "On a hot sunny day, after coming home from work, cutting a piece of gourd to cook soup with a handful of dried shrimp paste makes you feel… like it's autumn," my friend from Son Ha recounted.

The other day, my friends gave the shrimp a "new look." Instead of dried shrimp, we used freshly caught from the sea, glistening with freshness. The fresh shrimp, stir-fried with perfectly ripe tomatoes, a few cloves of onion, and some herbs, made the dish unusual, eye-catching, and incredibly appealing. Using rice paper instead of a spoon, we scooped up a piece of the stir-fried shrimp, and with just a quick bite, we could hear the individual shrimp making a popping sound as they offered themselves. Listening carefully, we could sense the honest sweetness of the sea emanating from the shrimp, blended with the gentle, rustic aroma of the local vegetables and fruits.

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