For many days, fishermen in coastal communes of Dien Chau district ( Nghe An ) have entered the season of catching herring using rafts. Hundreds of grills in nearly 20 coastal villages have been busy, lighting fires all night to grill herring. Early-season herring grilled over charcoal has delicious, nutritious meat, sweet, fatty, and attractive aroma.
Entering the herring season, people's demand for enjoyment increases again. Enjoying charcoal-grilled herring has become a tradition, bringing uniqueness to the culinary culture of the people of Dien Chau coastal area for many years.
The attractive taste of early season grilled herring over charcoal
At the beginning of the herring season, after each fishing trip, each raft of fishermen in the coastal villages of Dien Thinh, Dien Trung, Dien Kim, Hung Hai... communes can catch about 1-3 quintals of herring.
The rafts have just arrived at the shore, fishermen are busy removing the herrings that are tightly packed in the nets to clean, classify and transport them to sell at local markets, fish sauce processing facilities and hundreds of people who have the traditional profession of grilling sea fish with charcoal. The early season herrings are quite uniform in size, thick, fresh green in color, and have a lot of meat, white meat.
In the coastal communes of Dien Chau district at this time, it is easy to see women, mothers, and sisters grilling sea herring with charcoal on the porch, in the yard, on the dike, on the village road, and in the inter-village alley.
When grilled with charcoal, the herring is placed at an angle on the utensils to cool quickly, not to be pressed against each other and to be easily taken out for customers to buy. Grilled herring has a characteristic, attractive aroma.
The coastal commune of Dien Kim has 5 fishing villages with 140 rafts. The fishermen here have been fishing near shore for nearly 100 years.
On the main road of more than 2km running through Dien Kim commune, connecting Ngoc Bich and Hung Hai communes, there are more than 10 herring grills located along the road. The grills are always busy with red fire every day. This place is always crowded with people stopping to buy or sit down to enjoy grilled herring.
For a long time, charcoal-grilled sea herring has been popular in the culinary culture of the coastal people of Dien Chau. Charcoal-grilled early-season herring can be eaten with rice paper, vermicelli noodles, herbs, fig leaves, sour star fruit and dipped in fish sauce. However, the most popular and preferred by the people is to eat grilled fish dipped directly in fish sauce or lemon salt.
Ms. Le Thi Cao (Thai Thinh hamlet, Dien Kim commune) has been grilling sea herring for nearly 10 years. Every day, she grills 40-50kg, peaking at nearly 100kg of sea herring, selling retail to passersby and local residents.
Her house is less than 500m from the sea and she has a friend who goes rafting, so she always has a source of fresh herring to grill. Income from selling grilled herring becomes the main source of income for her family during the herring season (from March to June every year).
According to Mr. Nguyen Van Phuong (Thai Thinh hamlet, Dien Kim commune), the way to enjoy grilled herring over charcoal is not complicated, nor does it take much time to prepare. After grilling, the herring is deboned, wrapped with aromatic leaves, spices, rice paper, and hand-woven vermicelli. Diners just need to dip it in fish sauce to enjoy.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoi (Kim Lien hamlet, Dien Kim commune) said that after January, February and March, many species of fish appeared in the open sea. However, the most abundant was herring. This is a type of fish that is less fishy, has white meat, is low in fat, is healthy and is the easiest to catch. Charcoal-grilled herring has a sweet, delicious, rich, fatty taste, and a very stimulating aroma.
Decoding the quality of Dien Chau sea herring
In Vietnam's waters, there are about 10 species of herring; the skin and scales are slightly green, living on the surface, near the shore, 5-7 nautical miles from the mainland, with an elongated body. Adults weigh about 100 grams and are about 14-16cm long.
In the sea of Nghe An, fishermen in coastal districts such as Quynh Luu, Dien Chau, and Hoang Mai town often catch two species: herring and gourd. Herring has many greenish-white scales, white, fragrant, fatty meat but has many bones. Gourd herring has a round body, less scales, more meat and reddish flesh.
According to Mr. Nguyen Huu Ha (Dong Loc hamlet, Ngoc Bich commune), herring has been with them almost their entire lives. From the time a child in a coastal village learns to eat solid foods until they learn to walk and grow up to adulthood. For coastal women after giving birth, who are in the abstinence period, herring stewed with turmeric and molasses is also a familiar dish.
More than 20 years ago, when times were difficult, herring was an easy-to-find, nutritious food that mothers and grandmothers chose as their daily food.
"Charcoal-grilled sea herring is unforgettable for its smell, taste, aroma and texture. Grilled herring is a simple, familiar dish for every family, every person, every age. Grilled herring is best enjoyed when the fish is just cooked, the meat is still warm, fragrant and spreading in the cold weather," Mr. Nguyen Huu Ha shared.
According to fishermen, the quality of herring in Dien Chau sea is famous for its deliciousness and is popular among people for many reasons. Dien Chau district has a coastline of more than 25km, a gentle, shallow, wide beach with few big waves. Lach Van estuary is one of the 6 largest estuaries in Nghe An province. These factors have created an ideal living environment and rich food for herring to reproduce and develop quickly.
More specifically, from March to May, the season of sea urchins ashore creates the main, abundant food source for herring. Therefore, herring in the Dien Chau sea area has a lot of meat, very fresh and delicious. Herring is the species with the largest number of fish, which can reach tens of millions. If they encounter a school, fishermen can catch tons of herring after each trip to sea.
Herring has helped thousands of families in the coastal villages to have enough food. In fact, after Tet is often the season of monsoon winds, rough seas, big waves, cold weather, and extreme cold. Fishing is difficult during this period. While other marine fish species are still busy offshore, herring appear early, moving into shallow waters, close to shore to satisfy the "fish thirst" of fishermen in the coastal villages. Herring provides a large amount of daily food and creates a source of raw materials for processing fish sauce for people until June.
Dien Chau district has about 400 rafts, specializing in exploiting seafood (shrimp, prawns, anchovies, herring, gourami, crabs, mantis shrimp) in the sea area about 3-7 nautical miles from shore. There are two herring seasons in the year: the main season from March to June, the winter season from September to October.
Because of the short time of fishing close to shore, the herring is fresh and delicious. The selling price ranges from 30,000-40,000 VND/kg of herring at the beach, and the raft owner earns from more than 1-3 million VND/trip.
Coming to Dien Chau coastal area, people can enjoy and feel the taste of charcoal-grilled herring, the bounty of nature; at the same time, understand more about the soul and personality of the people, the beauty in culinary culture, the uniqueness of the coastal people.../.
Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/ve-mien-bien-dien-chau-thuong-thuc-ca-trich-dau-mua-nuong-than-hoa-post1012123.vnp
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