Market in my memories

I wonder if anyone still remembers that roadside market that specialized in breakfast food, operating from dawn until midday when it was completely deserted, leaving no trace. Located at a crossroads in a poor neighborhood, it branched out in four directions, right in front of houses, along fences, and under trees. There were at least twenty fixed food stalls of all kinds serving breakfast, not to mention ice cream carts, bubble tea carts, tofu vendors, and mobile dice game vendors... Stalls with trays and baskets lined both sides of the road, customers sat on wooden benches around low tables, crammed together, back-to-back, forcing passing vehicles to weave through. A short walk from one end of the market to the other, less than a hundred meters, was enough to feast your eyes and rumble your stomach.

A market that only meets in the morning.

I don't know exactly when the market was established, but I remember that when I was 5 or 6 years old, every morning I would take the few coins my mother gave me and go there to eat. It was only a few dozen meters from my house, at the corner of Bach Dang and Mac Dinh Chi streets in the Xom Moi area of ​​Nha Trang. Outside were stalls selling sticky rice; at this corner was Mrs. Bac, specializing in corn sticky rice and chrysanthemum sticky rice; diagonally across the street were two other sticky rice stalls. Then there were stalls selling boiled potatoes and corn in baskets placed on low stools. Further on were stalls selling banh can, banh xeo, banh canh, Quang noodles, bun bo, bun rieu, pho, banh beo hoi, porridge, bread, banh uot, banh duc… Almost no breakfast food was missing because the market had been there for a long time, and people gathered there to buy and sell. If anything was missing, a new stall would immediately replenish it.

The intersection of Bach Dang and Mac Dinh Chi streets today. Photo: GC

There was also a stall selling sweet rice wine behind a lamppost, which was quite amusing. I remember the vendor scooping it into bowls for customers so sparingly, as if measuring it out, making the child wish they could have a whole basin to eat to their heart's content someday. That child only had a few coins his mother gave him each morning to buy food, enough for the simplest dish like a packet of sticky rice or a loaf of bread with sauce. To add, bread with sauce was a popular dish back then; you'd slice the loaf and pour in a rich, fatty sauce made with colored water and a little bit of pork crackling, plus some pickled onions. Sometimes he'd take a coin and gamble on a dice game to try his luck, then go home hungry, vowing to himself that he would never gamble again. He also liked to skip meals to buy balloons, but he couldn't hide them, so he had to give up.

My grandmother had a stall selling rice noodle soup with scad fish every morning under a longan tree in this market. In the evenings, I would follow her to Nui Mot to get the flour. At 4 a.m., she would light the crackling wood-fired stove, and by 5 a.m., she would be carrying her load out. Scad fish is wholesome, cooling, and suitable for children and the sick. My grandmother would buy it, debone it, and boil it for broth, while the fillets were pounded into fish cakes. The rhythmic pounding of the pestle on the stone mortar accompanied me into my childhood dreams. On days when sales were slow, she would still have to carry the remaining fish back to the market by 9 a.m. to get to the market in time to get more scad fish from her customers. By then, the rice noodle soup would have been soggy, and sometimes we had to eat it instead of rice. The people in the neighborhood called her "Auntie Bay the Rice Noodle Soup Seller," and there was also the famous Auntie Bay the Quang Noodle Soup Seller, Auntie Ba the Pork Offal Porridge Seller, Sister Tho the Water Spinach Seller, and Auntie Nam the Rice Pancake Seller… Later, when my grandmother got old and stopped selling, her spot was immediately taken by someone else; there was no question of her selling the stall.

Every morning brings back memories of an old market.

The market was at its peak from after 1975 until the late 1990s. It was more widely known than just the local people, and it was very convenient; you could find anything you wanted to eat without any hesitation. Then, during the clearing of the sidewalks, the market began to be dismantled and gradually shrunk, with only a few small shops renting out storefronts for food stalls remaining. Eventually, it became deserted and sparsely populated, both buyers and sellers were disheartened, and the humble food stalls eventually disappeared, giving way to larger shops. Even the area now known as Xóm Mới (New Hamlet) is now called Bàn Cờ (Chessboard) area.

Occasionally, when I meet old acquaintances, they still reminisce about this beloved breakfast market, remembering this dish and that dish, remembering this person and that person. Newcomers probably find it hard to imagine what kind of market it was, bustling with food stalls in the morning. Now, walking back and forth every day, I see a noodle soup stall in one corner, Quang noodles and beef noodle soup in another, a candy cart in yet another... I even see a sleepy little girl holding a coin in her hand, looking bewildered, thinking she was so clever and cunning.

Every morning, whenever I'm wondering what to eat or where to buy something, I miss this market so much.

AI DUY

Source: https://baokhanhhoa.vn/van-hoa/nhung-goc-pho-nhung-con-duong/202601/phien-cho-trong-ky-uc-d142c21/