Far away the time of cold rice

Everyone knows about cold rice. But there is one thing that many people get wrong: Not all rice that is no longer hot is cold rice! Cold rice is not rice cooked in the morning and eaten at noon, or cooked in the afternoon and eaten at night. Cold rice is rice cooked today and eaten tomorrow, or rice cooked in the afternoon and left until late at night, that is, overnight. That is the real cold rice I am talking about here!

Cook extra to eat tomorrow, not that they are lazy to cook tomorrow, but only when eating cold rice can one feel the flavor of… cold rice! Therefore, many people cook rice and wait for it to cool down before eating. Cold rice, cut into a piece, use chopsticks or your hands, eat with anything, just chew thoroughly to feel the flavor of cold rice!

In the countryside in the past decades, you could have anything in the house, but there was definitely never a lack of… cold rice. Cold rice was not a luxury, but waking up in the morning without eating cold rice was like being addicted to coffee in the morning but not being able to drink it!

Fifty or seventy years ago, there was something that every family in the countryside, no matter how rich or poor, had to have: cold rice. Every morning, children, and sometimes even adults, would rummage for cold rice to eat before going to the fields, the sea, the forest, herding buffalo, going to school... A bowl of cold rice, usually eaten with a dried fish (usually dried fish, paper brain, red stomach, paralysis... that fishermen often kept just to eat cold rice) or a piece of powdered sugar, knowing that it was not as nutritious as a bowl of pho, hu tieu or a meat sandwich, but it certainly filled the stomach, because if the stomach was not full, how could one work hard all morning? (a dog-dog can eat a whole pot of cold rice like a game!).

In the old days (because it has existed for a long time), eating cold rice every morning (now breakfast, dim sum) is, if not an exaggeration, a traditional culinary feature, which the majority of Vietnamese people who were mainly farmers considered as the staple food passed down from father to son. Now that society is civilized, people have modernized even in eating and sleeping, cold rice is only a… legend!

“… My dear, why should I help you?

I am cold rice to satisfy hunger when you are hungry…”.

In addition to the role of wife and mother, women also hold the key in the family. Yet in this life, sometimes women have to endure unfortunate disadvantages. “My dear…” that folk song sounds so sad, mixed with a bit of cruelty. I am just cold rice, and only when you are hungry will you think of me, but when you are full… that’s it! “My dear…” is like begging, pleading, giving in… if anything happens, I will take it all, even if I am a humble grain of cold rice, just hoping that you will not betray me. Only then do we know that cold rice, even though it is just… cold rice, in this situation and when hungry, becomes a priceless dish!

I remember the days of staying up late to study, being hungry, going down to the kitchen, looking for cold rice, taking the trouble to light a fire, putting a little fat in the pan, squeezing the cold rice apart, then frying it until golden brown and sprinkling it with a little salt… it was that simple, I dare anyone to not drool when they saw it! If the cold rice was fried with shortening (the kind of fat stored in American tins, if you didn’t eat it at night, you would miss it!).

Does anyone still eat cold rice these days? In life, there are things that we regret when they are lost, but sometimes when we keep them, we are criticized. For example, waking up in the morning and eating cold rice for breakfast makes us feel poor, and is it because we are poor that we eat cold rice?

Cold rice must be cooked on a charcoal stove to be delicious, so it is still cold rice, but cold rice in the past is different from cold rice today, in the time of gas stoves and electric ovens.

Recalling the time of eating cold rice in the distant past... some people say that in those hungry times, having cold rice to eat was lucky, but how could cold rice be delicious? Wrong, in the past, not only the poor ate cold rice, but even the rich did. Now, if you don't believe it, one day you try eating cold rice with dried fish (grilled over charcoal fire) or a block of powdered sugar (the kind of sugar in the sugar mills in the countryside is only made by hand (using a buffalo to pull a rotating shaft to force the sugar cane to release its juice, flowing into a pan to cook into sugar) and yet it is fragrant, sweet, has a very distinctive taste, a kind of clean sugar that is guaranteed to be addictive after just one bite! Just kidding to ease your cravings, but nowadays there is no such thing as powdered sugar) or eat it with anchovy fish sauce, mixed with pickles... then crushed chili, you will see... a pot of cold rice is clean! So people have a reason when they remind someone who has to leave home:

"When I'm far away, I miss my hometown.

Miss the cold rice with eggplant in soy sauce…”.

Nowadays in rural areas, whether urbanized or not, does anyone still eat cold rice? Today’s culinary life has many delicious and strange dishes. People no longer die from war but die for food (not fighting over food)… but in food there are too many toxins!

Eating cold rice, a culinary feature "rich in national identity" of rural areas has existed for many generations. Unfortunately, today, material life has caused the loss of a long-standing habit...

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