Only on rare occasions during the rice harvest season, or when there was a death anniversary or Tet, did the family not have to eat mixed rice. Meals were still just vegetables, pickled eggplants, or at most, a bowl of crab soup with mixed vegetables picked from the fields, or a bowl of shrimp stewed with pickled cabbage that my sisters and I helped our family catch in the fields.
Among the foods used to mix with rice such as cassava, sweet potatoes, and potatoes, corn is the one that I don't get tired of the most. Corn is usually processed in 3 ways before being mixed with rice to cook rice, which are ground corn, popped corn, and corn flour.
Corn is often processed into ground corn, popped corn and cornmeal (Illustration photo from the Internet)
Corn is ground with a stone mortar to separate the kernels into 4-5 small pieces so that when cooked with rice, it will cook quickly. Popcorn is put into a clay pot before being mixed with the rice cooker and popped soft. With corn flour ground or pounded with a stone mortar until smooth and soft, used to steam rice, first knead water to wet it, add a few grains of salt to make it rich, then wait for the rice cooker to dry, shape round, flat cakes and arrange them layer by layer on top.
When the rice is cooked, the corn cakes are also cooked. Of the three ways to prepare corn, I like popcorn the best because when the corn is popped over a fire, the kernels expand, become soft and chewy, while still retaining the sweetness of the starch.
On days when the rice burned on the bottom of the cast iron pot due to overcooking the straw, I was always the one who asked my father to use a spoon to scrape it off and give me a bowl of burnt rice, because the burnt corn and rice were golden brown and crispy. The burnt rice and popcorn with soy sauce was also quite delicious, it did not give me the feeling of being stuck in my throat because of boredom like eating rice mixed with cassava, potatoes, especially sweet potatoes!
At that time, every night before going to bed, my mother was the one who took charge of popping corn - a job she had done for many years to support this poor family. That was why my mother's corn popping technique reached a superlative level. The corn was washed to remove dirt and then put into a small earthenware jar with a narrow neck that could only fit a rice bowl.
Mom usually pops 2 small bowls of corn kernels to fill the jar. The corn and clean water always fill half the jar, so when the corn is cooked, it is full. That is why when Mom is busy with something or when she is not at home, I often do it for her and apply exactly as Mom told me so that the corn does not become undercooked due to lack of water or the corn kernels do not become mushy due to too much water. Poppin' corn is actually not easy at all, if you do not research and learn, it is difficult to do.
To pop corn, there must be a lot of ash (ash cooked with straw), because ash is the part that will be covered on the outside to keep the fire burning for the corn to boil and cook. The ash pit for popping corn is always dug deep. Before placing the corn jar, a thick layer of rice husks (rice husks) must be sprinkled on the bottom. Place the corn jar on top, and wrap the jar around with a layer of rolled straw. The straw must be enough to cover almost the entire mouth of the jar so that the corn is cooked enough.
The mouth of the jar is covered with a bowl so that the ash does not spill into the corn jar. The bottom of the bowl is blocked with a heavy brick so that when the corn jar boils, the bowl will not be pushed up and the ash will fall in. When finished, light a fire to make the ring of straw around the corn jar burn.
Wait for the fire to burn for a while, enough for the embers to smolder and spread to the remaining unburned straw, then spread the ash to cover the surrounding straw and the bowl on top of the jar. The thicker and more tightly the ash covers, the longer the fire will smolder and thus the jar of corn will have enough heat to cook.
I have been away from the time of poverty with mixed rice for a long time, away from my mother's jar of popped corn for a long time, but I can never forget it, always consider it a memory and remind myself to strive to rise from hardship. Just like my mother, just by working hard with potatoes, cassava, soy sauce, eggplant, vegetables, salt and jars of popped corn, she was able to raise 5 of us siblings enough to grow up, study and become good people...
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