The taste of a broken banana bunch

Green bananas can be used to make many delicious dishes.

A dish to save for later.

In this land of abundant rain and sunshine, the people of Quang Nam province worry about their meals well into the next rainy season. On sunny days, my father would go around the village digging up a few young banana trees to plant. So that when the rainy season came the following year, we'd have something to cook for the children. The children would giggle at their father's foresight. Little did they know that worries filled his eyes and weighed down my mother's shoulders.

I still remember the great flood of 1999, after the water receded, the fields and gardens were devastated. A broken bunch of bananas was left behind, which my mother chopped down and propped up in the corner of the kitchen. The damp firewood filled the entire kitchen with acrid smoke.

My mother went to the well, scooped up a bucket of water, poured it into an aluminum basin, added a pinch of coarse salt, and stirred until dissolved. She cut a few ripe bananas, peeled them, and soaked them in the diluted salt water to prevent them from turning black during cooking. She washed the bananas and sliced ​​them thinly. My mother heated peanut oil in a pan, sautéed some shallots until fragrant, then added the bananas, stirred them well, added a little filtered water, and covered the pan, simmering over low heat.

Taking advantage of the moment, my mother went to the well to check if any betel leaves were left, picked them, washed them clean, and chopped them into strips. After about ten minutes, the bananas were soft, chewy, and fragrant. My mother seasoned them to taste, sprinkled the betel leaves on top, and took the pot off the heat. After the flood, with no meat or vegetables, this simple stir-fried banana dish was comforting after several days spent precariously in the attic fleeing the flood.

Now that I live in the city, whenever I go to the market, I always look around for stalls selling ripe bananas, but they are very rare. Occasionally, I manage to buy a bunch of green bananas, and I always stir-fry them with betel leaves.

Scent of Memories

The scent of memories lingers, like the changing seasons. Father has gone to the land of white clouds, and the old garden no longer hears the pattering of rain on the banana leaves. Mother, knowing her children far from home miss their homeland, often painstakingly cooks the dish of snails stewed with banana blossoms.

Rich in flavor, snakehead fish stewed with bananas.

The field in front of the house, once teeming with black snails, was now empty except for golden snails. My mother bought a bunch of snails, soaked them overnight in rice water, then scrubbed them clean, removing the meat and discarding the intestines. She carefully washed the snail meat with salt to remove the slime, then let it drain. She cut the green bananas into pieces. Then she went to the garden, dug up some turmeric, picked betel leaves and perilla leaves, and broke off a handful of chili peppers, washing them all clean.

Watching my mother painstakingly go out to the garden to pick various spices and herbs, I appreciate even more the delicious food made by elderly people.

My mother said that this dish needs turmeric to bring out the flavor and prevent the snails from having a fishy smell. The snails are marinated with shallots, fresh turmeric, finely minced onions, seasoning powder, fish sauce, MSG, and pepper.

Heat peanut oil in a pan, sauté minced shallots until fragrant, add snails and stir-fry until cooked through. Add a little boiling water, simmer over low heat, add bananas and cook until tender. Sprinkle with cilantro, then remove from heat and serve in a bowl. Snail stew with bananas is delicious with hot rice or noodles. Sometimes, when Dad catches a snakehead fish, Mom cooks it in a banana stew, and it's incredibly flavorful.

The rainy season has arrived again. Floods and storms no longer follow a fixed pattern in this strip of land sloping towards the sea. For generations, for many years, experiences in coping with floods and storms have been accumulated little by little, just like how my father planted a banana tree in the backyard on a sunny day.

One day, hearing the call of anchovies from an acquaintance who brought them from Duy Hai, my mother hurriedly grabbed a basket and bought a few kilograms to make fish sauce. The jar of salty fish sauce was saved for the rainy season.

The rain began to fall across the streets. From my usual cafe, Ngoc Lan's poignant voice sang: " Winter is coming to the city / The afternoon is cold / A chilly wind blows / Walking back to my small attic / Looking down at the park ..." (Winter is Coming to the City - Duc Huy). In me, the taste of a broken banana bunch resurfaced. The worries of the rainy season spare no one in this land...

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/vi-cua-buong-chuoi-gay-3141934.html