Tamarind fish sauce of the South and Sau soup in the North

Sour tamarind.

Not only in culinary world, images of tamarind and Sau are quite typical for their regions. In the South of Vietnam, sweet and sour tamarind is one of vital street food of students; on small streets, tamarind leaves simultaneously fall on pavements; and the Canopy of Tamarind writing club used to be a pure pride of writers and authors.

With Northern people, Sau fruits have been playing an important role in their daily lives, such as pickled Sau fruits in family meals, fresh ripe wild Sau fruits from Cuc Phuong forests sold in Hom marke, and sweet and sour Sau fruits as traditional feature gift of Ha Noi.

“Our childhood and the sour Sau”

That is a phrase in 10 years of missing (author Truong Nam Huong) that exiles would often mumble, “So missed. Why is the evening rain incessant? Over there season has changed in Ha Noi.”

The winter usually changes in Lunar March along with small yet incessant rains. After that period, the old Sau trees on Lo Duc or Phan Dinh Phung street (Ha Noi) would be thrillingly blooming with milky white tiny flowers.

After that, Sau fruits appear. Young Sau fruits are the best with a simple bowl of soup. After boiling water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica), dropping some young fruits into hot pot, waiting for the broth to be boiled again then gently mashed them is to have a perfect soup for summer.

The young fruits have yellowish skin, thin flesh, and transparent crunchy seeds. Sau fruits make the broth turning yellowish, too.

The flesh will be taken out and macerated in a small bowl of fish sauce together with fresh chopped chili. The daily summer meal, which has sour soup, hot and sour fish sauce, and one more main dish should be perfect.

The peak season of Sau fruits is June, when the fruits get really mature with dark scabrous skin. We can see Sau fruits in every corner of Ha Noi.

At that time, seasonal dishes should be served in almost every restaurant, from middle to high class. Popular dishes are cooked young ribs in Sau broth and duck in Sau hot pot. Chopped young ribs are cooked with a dozen of grated Sau fruits and a few bird chili, served with vegetables, mushrooms, tomatoes, celery, and optional dried or fresh noodles. The pot should be impressively robust with plentiful flavors, including special transparent sourness of Sau fruits, mild spicy of chili, and aromatic smell of celery.

Definitely, stewed duck and Sau fruits are perfect in harsh summer. Many household cooks strongly said that the more Sau fruits are, the better the pot is because duck is extremely good with mildly sour Sau fruits.

Totally different from the hot pot, stewed duck has an irreplaceable taste, which is from fresh ginger, nutty taro, and mildly acrid of water mimosa (Neptunia oleracea). Ginger is to balance the cold effect of duck meat and Sau fruits while water mimosa makes taro texture less fatty nutty. However, Sau fruits could not be combined with crab paste in any circumstance because the mixture would not be smooth or nice-looking.

Tamarind is prepared for a transparently sweet and sour flavor hot pot.

Southern tamarind fruits

Absolutely different from Sau fruits of the North, images of tamarind trees in the South are really poetry. Seeing tiny tamarind leaves falling in the wind can associate to a golden rain that famous musician Trinh Cong Son had written about.

Tamarind fruits are so common, from a casual snack to luxury dishes. Some popular products from tamarind are pickled hot tamarind in licorice liquid, addictive roasted peanut on tamarind juice, and especially, tamarind fish sauce. That type of fish sauce is indispensable with certain types of food, especially fishy food, such as grilled dried Bombay duck fish (Harpadon nehereus). Indeed, tamarind fish sauce can go with any dishes because Southern people just love its taste, and vice versus.

There are no Sau trees in the South of Viet Nam; fermented rice and rice vinegar are also not familiar with Southern people. Therefore, tamarind – together with Giang leaves (Aganonerion polymorphum) are indispensable the sour-maker spices in the kitchen here.

In supermarkets, a prepared package of sour soup always goes with a pinch of skinless tamarind. The sourness of tamarind is totally different from Sau’s. It tastes smoother with a hint of sweetness. However, tamarind does not work very well in boiling broth as Sau does. Sau fruits are specialized in featured dishes, such as sweet pickles and salty pickles, or sweet and sour candies while tamarind is served for quite common purposes.

Memories have their own particular tastes, like Southern people miss their tamarind fish sauce while Southern ones long to have a bowl of vegetable broth with mashed Sau fruits.

Simply that’s the taste of hometown.

Sau fruits in Ha Noi.

Expert housewives would wait until peak season, when Sau fruits reach their best maturity and the price is the most reasonable, to get up to 10 kilograms of Sau fruits. Those fruits will be grated, soaked in slaked lime liquid then divided into 2 containers, which one is sugar dipping and the other is chili fish sauce dipping. Sugared Sau juice is a legendary cooler for anyone who has spent a day in harsh summer of Ha Noi and salty pickled Sau fruits are great side dish from summer to the end of a year. The longer Sau fruits stay in containers, the better the taste is because fish sauce (or sugar) liquid has been absorbing all the flavors of Sau fruits and chili that make a simple yet irresistible sauce in every daily meal.

Writer: Cat Khue/Tuoitrecuoituan

Translator: Thu Pham