Delicacies from the forest in To Tung

1. Rainy afternoon in To Tung, mountain mist falls on the stilt houses on the slope. After a tour of Stor Resistance Village, To Tung Stream, Nup Hero Memorial House, the final destination of visitors is still the red-hot kitchen.

There, the "human delicacies" of the Bahnar people appear simple yet charming, encapsulating the spirit of "food is medicine, medicine is food".

Ms. Dinh Thi Nhung (Stor village, To Tung commune) grilled chicken to treat guests. **Photo: Hoang Ngoc**

In the small kitchen of Ms. Dinh Thi Nhung's family (Stor village), the dinner tray to entertain guests is filled with "homegrown" ingredients: free-range chicken, sticky rice, stream fish, wild turmeric flowers, bitter eggplant leaves, and the dish "to pung" - rice porridge cooked with chicken gizzards... The only industrial spices present are a little fish sauce and MSG.

Ms. Dinh Nhung has a strong and sturdy figure typical of young Bahnar women. She cooks quickly and smiles brightly: “Bahnar dishes are prepared simply, without elaborate seasonings. The spices are mainly taken from nature such as lemongrass, turmeric, chili, galangal… to preserve the purest flavor of the dish.”

The ingredients for making cassava leaves and bitter melon are all grown around the home garden. **Photo: Hoang Ngoc**

Next to her, her husband, Dinh Moi, enthusiastically told stories about forest cuisine . He cherished a few mountain snails - a gift from the forest because they have medicinal properties. He said that mountain snails often hide under layers of rotten leaves in the middle of the old forest, with a shell the color of rotten leaves, and only eat roots and leaves of medicinal plants. The snail meat is crispy, with a faint smell of medicinal herbs, a slightly bitter taste but good for health.

Dinh Moi introduces the benefits of a dish given by the old forest: " Anyone with bloating or flatulence will feel better immediately after eating it. When going to the forest a lot, eating this snail will also reduce bone and joint pain. For that reason, the Bahnar people also call it medicinal snail. In Dong Truong Son, there is also a "hunting" season for mountain snails from July to October every year . "

Visitors enjoy the food with a glass of ginseng wine - a product of the Kbang mountains and forests, adding "spice" to the host's whispering stories. The spicy taste of the wine, the strange taste of medicinal snails combined with pung silk make everyone feel elated, as if they are attending a forest party that cannot be bought with money.

Born in the middle of the Truong Son-Tay Nguyen mountains, Ms. Nhung understands well about cuisine associated with the seasons and the rhythm of life in the mountains and forests. “The forest provides people with seasonal food: bamboo shoot season, rattan shoot season, wild turmeric season… Whatever people cannot eat is sold or exchanged,” she said.

2. Leaving the fire in Stơr, the culinary journey in Tơ Tung continues at the Mo H'ra-Đạp Community Tourism Village. Here, a "hunger-fighting" root of the Bahnar people has become a "specialty to welcome guests" - cassava cake. The native cassava variety has a fragrant, rich taste, boiled and eaten with chili salt or bean salt is delicious enough. But people also create unique variations.

Cassava cake tray at Mo H'ra-Dap Community Tourism Village. **Photo: Hoang Ngoc**

Village elder Dinh Hmưnh said that people got bored of eating boiled cassava all the time, so they thought of a way to pound the steamed cassava into a sticky dough and make it into various cakes: fried golden-brown balls; small “minh tran” cakes like banh beo, filled with roasted peanuts; and steamed cakes wrapped in banana leaves.

Many visitors are surprised to experience the simple way of making this cake but it brings a different taste when enjoyed. The rich, fatty taste of cassava cake eaten with chili salt and bitter eggplant - a small wild eggplant the size of a chicken egg, with a characteristic bitter taste, becomes sublime.

The native cassava variety, both leaves and roots, are edible and have been preserved by the Bahnar people in To Tung for many generations. **Photo: Hoang Ngoc**

Elder Hmưnh explained: “ Cassava is familiar to the Bahnar people, so eating a lot is fine, but strangers can easily get full, and sometimes get “drunk” on cassava. The bitter eggplant that accompanies it helps to soothe the stomach and enhances the flavor.” Indeed, the bitterness of the eggplant combined with the sweet taste of the cake and the spicy taste of chili create a flavor that can only be found in the mountains and forests.

After serving many tourist groups with rustic cassava cakes with unique flavors, the locals also introduced a cake that combines flour mixed with grated coconut and coconut milk. This type of cake is easily found on cake carts in the city. But it seems that only when enjoying it in this Bahnar village in the middle of the Truong Son mountains, with the native cassava variety preserved through many generations, can one clearly see the difference of a dish.

The cuisine of To Tung contains a thousand-year-old cultural flow. In the bitter taste of bitter melon, in the crunchy sweetness of medicinal snails, or the soft, nutty texture of cassava, there is a lifestyle in harmony with nature, taking the forest as a source of life and also a place to entrust the philosophy of health preservation.

These simple dishes not only fill visitors’ stomachs, but also evoke layers of cultural memories and folk knowledge accumulated over thousands of years. And perhaps, it is this rustic yet philosophical flavor that has made To Tung an unforgettable culinary land on the Eastern Truong Son route.

Source: https://baogialai.com.vn/my-vi-tu-rung-o-to-tung-post566647.html