Fifty years ago, fresh green rice flakes symbolized purity and renewal. They still do. But they also taste great on ice cream.
You
have to look hard, these days, for honest com
(cốm).
During
a narrow window between August and October, famers north of Vietnam’s capital
pick immature sticky rice kernels, roast them over a wood fire and pound them
with mortar and pestle into green-yellow flakes. Lotus leaves help preserve
their sweet aroma as street vendors carry them to market.
Vietnamese
women believe they smooth the skin and have included them in detox diets since
the early 18th century. Cooks value their bright, nutty flavor - something not
unlike sweet corn.
More
than anything, the capital has looked to com
as a pure expression of love, amity and veneration. Every autumn, children gift
com to elders who place it on the
family altar.
Poet,
spy and proto-foodie Vu Bang said Hanoi’s seasonal craving for com was cultivated over centuries - so much
so that Bang believed thoughts of com
“deepened the sorrows of far-flung Hanoians as autumn’s clouds breezed in.”
Hanoi’s
urban sprawl has swallowed the villages he considered the best sources forcom (Vong, Me Tri and Lu).
Today,
com at its finest can only be found
in the baskets of a few proud, aging street hawkers.
A sleepless business
Kha
has sold green rice flakes on the fringe of Hom
market and Vong village since she was
16.
At
80, she continues to wake up at 3 a.m. to begin pounding and roasting fresh
green rice flakes she buys from farmers in outlying provinces. At precisely 5
a.m., you can find her in front of Vong
village gate - 46 Tran Thai Tong Street. Her operation consists of a basket,
scales, lotus leaves and a single plastic glove.
“I
live in the alley across the street. Whenever I run out of com, my younger brother runs out with more.”
Kha and her basket of com.
After
a hundred years of sales, com Vong
has become something of a national brand. Kha says only six families still sell
the genuine article.
“There
are a number of fakes," she said. "Real com Vong is neither dry nor damp even when left to sit out all day.
Other varieties need to be sprayed down, every few hours.”
As
its reputation grew, com Vong became
the subject of a terrible scandal.
In
2014, Dan Tri published an undercover expose that featured hidden camera
footage of vendors dying baskets of com
green.
"If
you want it beautiful, you've got to use industrial dyes, otherwise it just
doesn't look pretty," said a shirtless, tattooed man with a blurred face.
The
secret ingredient in Me Tri village’s
lesser com as "malachite
green" a chemical dye banned for use in Vietnam for its carcinogenic
properties.
Com-related deaths have yet to be
reported, but old masters like Kha have struggled to maintain their prestige.
She
keeps a small pile of business cards on hand, and speaks proudly about her
combeing shipped to Vietnamese families abroad. Squatting in the early morning
traffic, her eyes filled with hope about future markets in Europe and the
United States.
All that’s green
isn’t gold.
Do
Thi Lang has sold com for 45 years
near Truc Bach Lake and doesn't bother with the com Vong brand. Instead, Lang says she's proud of her own product.
“Comshould have a yellow glow, instead of being fern green,” she said.
The yellow natural glow of Lang’s com.
Lang takes the utmost care even in packaging her product.
Lang, who is in her sixties.
Lang
likewise wakes at 3 a.m. every day to ready her wares and settle into her patch
of pavement on Chau Long by dawn. She takes the utmost care in packaging her
kernels in a neat square presentation.
“I’m
proud of my com," she said
gently unfurling a lotus leaf. "You can take pictures, but please be
quick, or the flavor will fade.”
In
Vu Bang’s autumn, smitten Hanoi men got to work carefully arranging betrothal
baskets loaded with com and
persimmons for the parents of their intended.
Quoting
a popular poem, Bang described the final lament of a broken-hearted suitor in
his day:
“I
can’t believe she’s already engaged! Now the com will be left to rot!”
Modern
Hanoians remain hard at work finding ways to make the green stuff last.
Some
melt it into porridge. Many more mix com
into sweet cakes that continue to provide the principal step toward a happy
marriage.
Single,
hungry customers must elbow past wholesale buyers to belly up to the counter at
11 Hang Than where a family has sold sweetcom cakes since the middle of the
19th century.
The
crush of demand strains the patience of the cashier, who looks upon the merely
hungry in astonished disbelief.
An
order for any less than 10 elicits the same incredulous reply: “Only?”
Every
day, the shop cranks out thousands of cakes for engagement parties, Buddhist
venerations and nostalgic expatriates pining for their sweetness overseas.
Thousands
more find their way into the bellies of hungry Hanoians in search of a quick
snack, breakfast or dessert.
Now
freed of its delicacy, com finds its
way into everything from ice cream to the dish Bang so vehemently opposed:
meatballs.
Meatballs dabbed with com eaten with vermicelli.
We
found a lunch of com-studded deep-fried meatballs rather delightful, but the old
foodie simply couldn’t tolerate the thought of wasting the graceful com on
greasy pork.
He
suggested a bowl of steamed white rice instead– “just to spare the luxury.”
Writer: Quynh Trang
By VnExpress