I chirped and took the basket with my mother, my chapped cheeks glistened with joy because today there was an improvement for the whole family.
The village field is just across the dyke. The dyke is as long as a silk strip, separating the chaos of the village and the immense straight garden beds.
My mother dragged me to the fields that were harvested and plowed. Mother showed me to distinguish among many types of wild vegetables, there is one thing that is the soul of the cake. As it turned out, the vegetables that grow alternately in the layers of plowed soil, round, chalky white leaves, thin stems, with tiny flower clusters at the top are the main flavor of this cake with a Vietnamese soul. . My mother told me to find the right sticky rice leaves, but the dull leaves look fat and fat but eat very badly. Working hard for a while, mother and daughter picked a basket.
Starting to make cakes is very elaborate. When the leaves were brought home, the mother threw away the old stalks, washed them, then put them in a mortar and pounded them for a long time, until the vegetables were like powder. That dark green vegetable powder is mixed with glutinous rice flour, beaten by hand until the dough is smooth and not sticky. The round golden nuggets, including pureed green beans stir-fried with dried onions, add a little pepper and thinly sliced pork belly, marinated enough. My mother told me to cut the meat so that the fat layer is preserved, but the cake is too lean. After the molded cake is finished, put it in the pot, spread the layer of glutinous rice cake evenly, then put it on the dish.
The fire flickered with the sound of boiling water. The children wandered around eagerly waiting for the time to unload the cake. Mom went out for a while and brought back the banana leaves. Mother said that the young banana leaves are heated, and the banh khuc package is the best. When the cake is cooked, mother carefully covers it with a blanket to keep it warm. The sound of the cold wind still whistling on the veranda was challenging with the children eagerly waiting for their turn. In a time when food was scarce, her mother’s pot of banh khuc was a priceless gift.
Holding a hot cake in your hand, inhaling the smell of sticky sticky rice seeds, passionate leaves, tangled with the smell of young banana leaves, like a close, simple aroma. Carefully take a bite to feel the plasticity of the sticky rice, the fragrant cake of the wormwood along with the sweet, rich, peppery taste of green onions and green beans, the feeling is great. Mouth scoffed because the cake was hot and spicy, but it felt warm and green as if winter would never return.
The pot of banh khuc also followed my mother and me every spring, until the urban storm crept through the village on the lower hamlet. The whole field turned into a giant construction site. People put cranes and excavators in to plow and chop the fields. The sound of dump trucks rumbled day and night, breaking the bulges and wounds on the romantic and memorable embankment. There is no place for rice, for color and of course, there is nowhere for the leaves to interfere. Mother’s pot of banh khuc is only in the past, in the golden layer that has passed for a while.
And the “past beggar” today, in the freezing cold of the snowstorms of the country, suddenly craved to eat a hot cake of his mother.
