6 months on, 6 months off
Ms. Ngo Thi Dong (33 years old, living in An Thai village) said that her family's profession of making vermicelli with snakehead fish has been passed down through many generations. Starting from her ancestor Ho Van Muoi, she passed it on to her daughter Ho Thi Vinh; then Vinh passed it on to her daughter-in-law Ly Thi Huong (deceased). Ly Thi Huong's vermicelli making facility is very famous, and its products are sold all over the country. Ms. Huong's children continued the family's profession of making vermicelli with snakehead fish, and 3 of them established their own facility. Among them, Ms. Dong's grandparents named the facility Hung Dat - Ly Thi Huong. Currently, this facility produces 2 types of products: green bean starch (to make vermicelli with snakehead fish) and vermicelli with snakehead fish.
Song Than vermicelli and other vermicelli and cakes from An Thai village are dried on the alluvial ground of the Kon River.
Bun song than is special because the ingredients are all green beans. The process of making vermicelli by hand with many stages, from selecting the ingredients to processing, is very strict. The green beans must be selected for firm grains, dried and soaked in cold water overnight, and the shells must be removed before being ground. The ground green bean powder is filtered many times, separated into fine powder (first grade) and coarse powder (second grade). Only the fine powder is used to make bun song than.
The green bean starch is dried, then kneaded until it is neither too dry nor too mushy. If the dough is too dry, the noodles will break easily, and if it is too mushy, the noodles will be sticky and difficult to shape. Next, the worker uses a funnel (mold) to roll the dough to form noodles, then puts them in boiling water for about 2-3 minutes. After that, the noodles are taken out, rinsed with cold water before being dried in the sun. After drying, the noodles are divided into bundles or packages, wrapped in banana leaves or plastic.
"The raw material for making vermicelli is green beans, so it needs the sun to dry. Then the starch used to make vermicelli is also dried in the sun, and the vermicelli noodles also need the sun to dry. Therefore, the vermicelli making profession only operates during the 6 sunny months of the year, and cannot be made during the 6 rainy months. During the season, vermicelli makers work from midnight until noon the next day," said Ms. Dong.
Picky about who does the work, picky about who eats it
According to Mr. Vo Thanh Son (in An Thai village, son of the owner of Hung Dat - Ly Thi Huong), on average 5 kg of green beans are needed to make 1 kg of vermicelli with song than, so the price of this type of vermicelli is higher than other types of vermicelli. Because it is made from green beans, vermicelli with song than is highly nutritious. This vermicelli can be used in beef vermicelli, chicken vermicelli, shrimp vermicelli, vermicelli soup or vermicelli stir-fried with shrimp, lean meat, chicken giblets, duck giblets, etc. In Binh Dinh folklore, there is a saying: "Go Gang horse hat/An Thai vermicelli with song than/Nhon Ngai silk and bean curd/Hung Long ripe mango" to mention the famous products of the ancient land of Binh Dinh.
Legend has it that because he loved eating vermicelli with snakehead fish, the Nguyen Dynasty king summoned the An Thai village vermicelli makers to the capital Hue to make vermicelli with snakehead fish but was unsuccessful. Therefore, the people of An Thai believe that authentic vermicelli with snakehead fish must be soaked in the sun, wind and water from the Kon River to have a shiny white color and achieve the chewy, chewy and delicious taste.
According to Mr. Duong Thanh Cuong, Chairman of Nhon Phuc Commune People's Committee, An Thai traditional vermicelli and cake craft village currently has about 100 households producing various types of dried vermicelli such as: rice vermicelli, green bean vermicelli, number 8 vermicelli, dong vermicelli (banana root vermicelli), fake rice vermicelli, Vietnamese flour vermicelli, pho noodles, rice paper..., creating stable jobs for about 600 - 800 workers. The revenue of An Thai traditional vermicelli and cake craft village is about 200 billion VND/year. Song Than vermicelli alone is a family heirloom product, currently only 3 of Mr. Huong's children have a facility to produce this type of vermicelli.
Twin lizards, twin gods or twin men?
Green bean vermicelli in An Thai village has 3 names: vermicelli with song than, vermicelli with song thang, vermicelli with song than. Some people explain the name song than because when making vermicelli, people roll the vermicelli in pairs, others mispronounce it as vermicelli with song than.
According to Dr. Vo Minh Hai (Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Quy Nhon University), the two archived versions of the book Dai Nam Nhat Thong Chi (National History Institute of the Nguyen Dynasty), including the version compiled during the Tu Duc era (1848-1883) and the version compiled during the Duy Tan era (1907-1916), both recorded a local product in Binh Dinh called dau tuyen (string made of beans), commonly known as bun song thang. Therefore, the name dau tuyen is the official name of An Thai village's green bean vermicelli, which was determined at a time before and during the reign of King Tu Duc.
Freshly baked vermicelli noodles are spread out on a cloth-lined mat to dry.
According to Dr. Vo Minh Hai, the name song thang may have been popular in the country since after Tu Duc's reign until before Duy Tan's reign. The name song thang is closely related to the original name "dao tuyen". Because the word "Tuyen" and the word "Thang" (Chinese characters) both mean string, which are words that have common meanings in cases where mutual annotation is needed. Therefore, the name song thang is both a way to supplement the meaning of the word "dao tuyen" and also shows the shape of the finished vermicelli in the production process. As for the name song thang, it is unclear when it was passed down among the people, but it has now become popular. However, according to the elders in Binh Dinh, before 1975, the name of this type of vermicelli was song thang.
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/nhung-nghe-doc-la-lam-bun-tien-vua-185241023233346241.htm
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