Dried Shrimps of Ha Tien

Moreover, the coastline lay from the North to the South, which is influenced by different climates and topographic, so even the same type of seafood but from different zones could have various qualities.

One of the most typical examples of Vietnamese seafood is shrimp. We have several kinds of freshwater prawns, such as giant river prawns, river shrimps junior (Macrobrachium nipponense), and mini-size river shrimps (Caridina flavilineata); and plenty of saltwater and brackish water shrimps like black tiger prawns, white shrimps, lobsters (7 different kinds), mantis shrimps (stomatopods), and slipper lobster (Ibacus ciliates). That we did not mention native types, which have been existed here for so long.

Shrimp is an extremely popular food in all over the world because they are not only flavorful and nutritious but also easy to cook in different ways. To preserve and to use up the sweetness of shrimp flesh, people have made fermented shrimp paste, sour pickled shrimps, and of course, dried shrimps. Vietnamese dried shrimps even overpassed fresh ones to go around the world. In Vietnam, the most famous area where can do mass production of dried shrimps is Ca Mau, the southernmost province because people have farm raised brackish water shrimps for decades there. However, gourmets rather choose dried shrimps from another region – Tien Hai, Ha Tien province. They explained that there is no way to compare industrial food to homemade food.

Ha Tien is a coastal narrow town with all kinds of topography as lagoon, bay, plains, mountains, rivers, caves, and islands. Although recently, Kien Giang province has begun to expand its brackish water shrimp farming industry (mainly concentrated in the districts of Long Xuyen Quadrangle, including Kien Luong, Giang Thanh, Hon Dat and Ha Tien town), people in Tien Hai island commune are still loyal to in-shore fishing and drying seafood in traditional way.

Household process of drying shrimps in Tien Hai island seems simple. They wash the whole shrimps, boil to cooked, drain, then sundry them till the skeletons get crispy. Dried whole shrimps are collected into burlap bags and smashed to take off the skeletons and the final product will be packed. It’s easy to say but every single step requires a bunch of inherited experiences to get the best result.

Wild caught shrimps from the sea should be classified by their sizes in order to manage the boiling time. At least 5 – 10 kg fresh shrimps for each bucket. The fresher shrimps are; the better final products could be. After washed, the whole bucket of shrimps will be placed into boiling water. The key of flavorful and long-lasting dried shrimps is portion of salt. People usually use 250g salts on 1 litter of water for sea shrimps and 300g salts on 1 litter of water for freshwater shrimps. However, families in Tien Hai do not need to apply any of those recipes because they boil shrimps in seawater. The inshore water around Tien Hai is extremely clean and it carries an ideal salinity, in which sea salts are compounds like sodium chloride, magnesium sulfate, potassium nitrate, and sodium bicarbonate - which dissolve into ions. Therefore, the flavor of dried shrimps from this island is always constant and rich. In this step, people also use food color in boiling water to make the final products more vibrant but people here do not need any food color either because dried shrimps from fresh wild caught sea shrimps are always nicer looking with orange-red flesh than farm raised ones.

In Tien Hai island, mostly every house has a back yard, where they can dry shrimps under direct sunlight. Their back yards are usually made from bamboo woods and covered with a sheet of dense net. The people here have a very unique style of doing their works. They drag big buckets of cooked shrimps to the yards, shovel, and throw shrimps onto the yards. It’s quick and efficient. Under the high heat of tropical sun, it just takes 3 – 4 days to dry up all those shrimps; flesh is firm and skeleton is crispy. People collect them and divine into burlap bags, smash them to break the skeletons then harvest all the bare flesh. It depends on climate at the time, humid or dry, that people would dry the shrimps again in oven-like machines. Recently, most households equip themselves mechanical shell-cracker to fasten this step and keep the final product more hygiene.

In average, 1kg dried shrimps grade A need 9kg fresh ones so their prices are not quite affordable. Prices of Tien Hai (Ha Tien province) dried shrimps are even more expensive than Rach Goc (Ca Mau province), where is already famous for this product.

The final products are vacuum-packed and ready to serve. Small size dried shrimps have firm texture so they are used for soup, flavoring, or smashed to serve with well known sweet rice and typical rice noodles in Ha Tien town. Big dried shrimps with the size of a knuckle of a child’s hand are still tender yet chewy, which is great for any types of cooking. Even we can have them raw with pickled Chinese onions to enjoy all their flavors and sweetness.

By Thu Pham