Sweet and cool La stream mussels

Located on the banks of the gentle La River, Ben Hen village in Truong Son commune, Duc Tho district, Ha Tinh has been associated with the profession of "clam cleaning" for over 300 years.

The natural gifts of La River have helped stabilize and develop the lives of many generations of people here. Currently, the whole village has 60 households with mussel-gathering boats, each boat indirectly creates jobs for 4-5 other people in the village.

Every January, Ben Hen villagers embark on a journey to harvest mussels and clams (similar to mussels but smaller). The harvest lasts until the eighth lunar month, when the flood rises, and mussel farmers can rest with their families. Due to the increasingly depleted resources, in addition to harvesting in the La River, Ben Hen villagers have to expand to Vu Quang to harvest mussels and to Nghe An's Lam River to harvest mussels.

When the "mussels" boats return loaded with mussels and tow them, the huts line up along the banks of the fiery red river, the white smoke rolls out into the La River with the wind, signaling the beginning of the mussel processing stage.

Previously, mussel processing was "everyone's business", however, later, the Truong Son commune government systematically planned a mussel processing area for the people. Accordingly, this area stretches about 400m, along the La River bank with dozens of huts from 3-5m² wide, solidly built, with corrugated iron roofs. Each hut is equipped with a stove and a large cast iron pot for cooking mussels.

After being soaked and cleaned, the mussels and clams are brought to the stove to boil to separate the shells and remove the intestines.

To get round and firm mussel intestines, the oven must be hot enough, the fire must boil, and the foam must overflow 3 times.

After cooking, the mussels and clams will be taken to the river for the last time to remove the intestines.

The mussel intestines are skillfully cleaned in clear blue water.

The mussel batches are skillfully cleaned by the villagers of Ben Hen and put into baskets covered with thin cloth.

According to households, during peak season, each boat can rake 5-6 quintals of gutted fish/day and nearly 1 quintal of mussels. After processing, they will collect nearly 1 quintal of gutted fish and over 1000 mussels. With the current market price of 150,000 VND/kg of mussels and 50-70,000 VND/kg of gutted fish, it has contributed to bringing stable income to households.

Customers buy mussels and clams to prepare many dishes such as: chives soup, vegetable soup, jackfruit soup, stir-fried bean sprouts... Especially, recently, mussel hotpot has become a specialty that diners are extremely excited and appreciate.

Video: Ben Hen people diligently clean mussels along the La River.

Source: https://baohatinh.vn/ngot-mat-hen-dong-la-post287501.html