Love the summer sun

Summer fruits and vegetables. Photo: DO TINH

Farming, gardening or farming, the rainy season is a precious gift from heaven and earth, for fruit trees to bloom and rice to form ears. But no matter how hard you look, you still have to go through the scorching heat above your head, before the rain comes. The heat of March and April comes with lush orchards of ripe fruit, which people often compare to the Southern fruit festival season. Rambutan, longan, mango, durian, mangosteen... in the sweet, aromatic season, follow traders to all provinces and cities, bringing a season of sweet Southern flavors.

Good fruit must be ripe on the branch, and have enough sunlight to be sweet and rich in flavor, which is why people give each other, even if only a few fruits at the beginning of the season are precious. When the rains change seasons more and more, the sweetness of the fruits at the end of the season also fades a bit, and when going to the market to buy fruit, the seller often says: "Please understand, it's been raining too much these days so it's not as sweet as the previous days". There's no need to ask clearly, or be forced to explain thoroughly, as a natural default, tropical fruits are less sweet when it rains a lot than when it's sunny... And for generations, people in the Mekong Delta have never complained about sweetness or blandness, because the sun and rain are the things of heaven, and the natural flow of fruits and trees is also the colorful nature of life.

The summer sun not only nurtures the sweet fruit season, but also dries the salty taste of the homeland, dried fish dried in the sun can be kept for a long time, fried or grilled, it also becomes a specialty. In the increasingly fast urban life, dried fish from the homeland has also stepped onto e-commerce platforms, the specialty dried in the sun is enthusiastically sought after by customers. Because the fish has just been dried in the warm sunlight outdoors, so that the meat is firm, soaked in a little salt, a little pepper and chili to bring out the aroma, no matter how bad the cooking skill is, fried or grilled, it can become a specialty meal, enough to enter the restaurant, sitting proudly at the first position on the menu.

And in the blazing summer sun, all of Mom's possessions were still drying. The squash trellis, the bean vines, or the okra plants in the garden, Mom saved the old fruits to pick, the okra dried up on the plants, just waiting for someone to touch them and they would fall off immediately, brought them inside to separate the seeds to save for planting when the rain came. The old squash fruits, the fibers were used to make dishwashing sponges, and the seeds were saved for seeds. In the hot season, Mom also took the opportunity to teach her daughters all kinds of skillful cooking tasks. In the summer, lotus flowers also bloomed in the pond, jasmine flowers and grapefruit flowers, she took the opportunity to dry them to make tea, each day she drank layer upon layer, saving 2 cups of hot, fragrant tea for Dad.

The summer sun sweetens the ripe fruit season, but the water in the river, canals or ditches around the house is alum and sour. In the dry season, rainwater is a rare commodity, if you want to use river water, you have to use it to wash your hands, feet, or to wash the hoes and shovels to remove the mud from the hoeing and digging in the garden... And in that hot, sultry sun, there is still a whole childhood, sometimes the sun burns your hair yellow, but you still tirelessly chase after each kite, running all over the countryside. Then, your dreams fly high and far, and when you grow up, you will feel the golden sunshine and love a summer, hard work, hardship and also the sweet scent of home.

RED SUNFLOWER

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/thuong-mua-nang-ha-post794701.html