Pop Rice Vietnamese Style

The Singing Cock

At Mekong delta there are many places where local people show tourists how to make pop rice Vietnamese style. Basically the idea is the same as in making pop corn, but a rice grain has to have certain amount of moisture in it to be popped. I would also assume that the grain has to have its shell to be able to pop, so if you're going to try it at home, make sure to use unmilled rice. What makes the rice popping special in a village at Mekong delta is the use of heated black sand in the process. The rice is poured in a large hot pan with sand already in it, and it is vigorously stirred until the rice starts to pop. Then the contents of the pan is sifted so that popped rice remains in the sieve and the sand goes back in the pan. The popping itself takes no more than 20-30 seconds. The taste is somewhat close to pop corn, still different. Apparently there is no oil used in Vietnamese style, at least where we witnessed rice popping, so snack-wise pop rice isn't very unhealthy.

The following video shows the popping part. There was a hennery nearby, and the cock was constantly singing every few minutes. Apparently it somehow got on my two-year-old son's nerves, since he started imitate the cock-a-doodle-doo song every time the cock sung. You can hear both the cock and my son singing during the first seconds of the video clip.

My Short Career as a Smuggler

Duong Dong market place egg shop

Fish sauce is the very foundation of Southeast Asia cuisine. Thai people call it nam pla, Cambodians teuk trei and in Vietnam it's called nuoc mam. It is somewhat close to soy sauce, at least when it comes to its culinary role as a substitute of salt. It also adds its extraordinary character to Southeast Asian food. Like so many world class delicacies, instead of being just your ordinary, common, regular, everyday fish sauce, it just has to be something weird. I mean, say, haggis is basically ground innards, and oysters look like living snot. Fish sauce's weirdness comes from the making process.

The fresh catch of anchovies is put into giant containers where it is let to ferment for months ending up - not so fresh. Lots of salt is used. The process extracts liquid from the fish, and its slowly pressed so that very old, very pungent dark fluid oozed down through small plastic hoses. There are actually several ways to make fish sauce, the time of fermenting and ingredients varying a lot, but that's about the way I saw it being made when I had a chance to visit a fish sauce factory in Vietnam.

Factory gate

Phu Quoc island in Vietnam produces nationwide famous fish sauce. The factory is set in the harbour of the island capital, Duong Dong. Just walk past the vast piles of eggs, meat, fish and fruit at the market place, pass the body shops and the little booths selling souvenirs, toys and household supplies, cross the little bridge, turn left and you're there. We could hardly recognise anything resembling a fish sauce factory, but a small group of westerners puffed out of a gate nearby, so we got a quick confirmation that this was the right place.

Fish sauce barrels from below...

The only people inside the factory were two little girls, probably watching over that stupid tourists won't do anything... stupid. Otherwise the hall was filled tens of huge (and I mean HUGE) wooden barrels, which, judging by the appalling stench were filled with rotting or, um, fermenting fish. At the feet of the barrels there were small plastic buckets collecting through small hoses the end product, the praised Phu Quoc fish sauce. There was no shop beside the factory to buy the sauce itself after the fascinating visit. Back to the streets, then. At the crossing, near the small river bridge at the corner of the market place there was a shop, a real shop-like shop instead of an ordinary small-time booth, that seemed to be focused on selling mainly fish sauce. I purchased three bottles of about 2 dl each. What a great culinary gift for friends, huh? Pure Phu Quoc fish sauce straight from the crime scene!

...and from above.

Speaking of criminal activity, I was well aware that Vietnamese airline forbids having fish sauce in your luggage. Yes, that includes also the hold luggage. But alas, I strayed from the straight and narrow. I carefully wrapped each bottle in plastic bags so that any leakage should stay inside the plastic. Then I used jeans and other heavy clothing as wrappers for shock-proofing the fish sauce containers. I placed the heavily stuffed bottles in the middle of the suitcase so that they didn't touch each other and weren't near any inner surface. Additionally, I used other stuff like footwear to prop up the contents of the suitcase so that nothing could move much but there would be some elasticity to absorb possible shocks. I could have beaten the suitcase with a baseball bat not being able to break the fish sauce bottles. And surely the other containers (shaving foam, deodorants etc.) among the luggage provided perfect camouflage for the puny sauce bottles, in case they X-rayed the luggage, right? But who would search any fish sauce in anyone's luggage? Of course they have more important things to look for, eh?

The end product

At the tiny Duong Dong airport, end of the island part of the trip. We checked in the hold luggage, went through the security check and waited for our flight back to Saigon. An announcement crackled in the low quality speakers of the passenger hall. Wait a minute? Did I hear my name mentioned? I thought the announcement was spoken in Vietnamese, can't be my name. Wait, there it comes again. And is it English? And there my name again! Please come to the... somewhere. Shit, they must have found my precious fish sauce, what do we do now?

We went back to the security check, and I explained I heard my name in the announcement. The clerk pointed a lonely door at the end of the lobby. 'Staff only', it read, but we entered a area with big machinery and conveyor belts criss-crossing the room. A man in the distance was clearly waiting for us. There was a familiar suitcase on the table next to him. Again I said I heard my name in an announcement and he, hands crossed, asked me if that was my bag. After I admitted it was, he inquired, with a slight grin on his face, if I had any fish sauce inside it. Aw busted!

I conjured a confused expression on my face saying:
- Yes I do sir, why, is there a problem with it?
The grin on the man's face grew wider, as though he knew I knew it was forbidden. Which I knew, of course. We both knew.
- It's forbidden to carry fish sauce in your airline luggage in Vietnam, he confirmed.
I went on with my 'dumb tourist' act saying
- I thought it was ok in the hold luggage as long as it's not in your carry-on. Why on Earth would it be forbidden also in the big suitcase?
- Because of the smell, sir, gave the man the reason I already knew. Too many cases of broken fish sauce containers in airline luggage made Vietnam Airlines forbid transporting the stuff for good. It makes the whole cabin smell like... fish sauce, which made people more or less sick.

The correct way to do it

I removed all the three bottles from the suitcase. The man seemed impressed of my careful packing, but no can do, no means no. The bottles had to stay aground. The plaque on the wall forbade also transporting durian fruit for the same reason. I said I had durian only in my belly so I got away with that. It seemed there were no further sanctions for attempted fish sauce trafficking, so I wished the cheerful chap and his colleagues some tasty moments with my confiscated fish sauce and we left Phu Quoc without it.

In the plane I was already planning my next scheme to bring the stuff from Saigon to Finland.

Bird's Snot Drink

In a Vietnamese supermarket it's not unusual to find canned soft drinks made of bird's nest, which consists of bird saliva. Great, a bird's snot drink! They even tend to have many brands available, many of which contain also something called white fungus as a second main ingredient. Both of these key elements in this canned drink are quite common in Asian cuisine, and not very surpisingly because of their medicinal and health benefits on digestion and libido. So of course I had to buy a can. It's a health drink after all!

Something to everyone's taste

To be honest, the can sat in my fridge for about two years before I got around to actually drink it. Guess it was too easy to forget that I had a chilled can of bird's drool somewhere behind the pickled cucumbers and Morello cherry jam. I discovered it recently and noticed that the best before date was still far in the future. What the hell, this is a must-taste.

The first impression when pouring the beverage in a glass was like eww is this gone bad after all. The liquid was much thicker than water, like clear motor oil ...except for the clumps. Along the liquid there fell several little whiteish flaky lumps. Most of them were white and same sized, but there were bigger and more yellow ones here and there. Oddly enough, the clumps didn't sink to the bottom. Instead the viscosity of the bird mucus drink held them floating in the middle of the drink evenly spread within the glass in a most bizarre way. I guess the globs were pieces of that white fungus mentioned in the can.

Notice that yellow bastard near bottom.

My major mistake was that I wasn't thirsty at all when I decided finally to drink the bird's nest beverage. Somehow, when experimenting with exotic and weird food and drinks, it helps a lot if you're hungry or thirsty in the beginning. The bird's nest drink was mainly... sweet. But in a subtle way, like the general taste of the whole  beverage. It wasn't strong in any sense, and the clumps were small and soft enough so you could drink without noticing the solid particles. I even tried to chew on a piece of white fungus, but if I managed to get it between my teeth, I really didn't notice it.

But like I said, I wasn't thirsty, and chugging down the weird thick and clumpy liquid started to freak me out. Suddenly I didn't feel like having that bigger yellow slime gobbet in my mouth after all. Had I been thirsty, I would have only be happy to drink glass of that ice cold semi sweet beverage. Now the experience turned from a pleasant start to slightly ghastly end.

Correspondent's Vest

The ultimately best traveller's companion and the thing to bring is a correspondent's vest (aka photographer's vest). You know, that often green or khaki coloured multipocketed piece of garment with lots of zippers and compartments. Sure, depending on the design, it might make you look like you're going to a hunting spree. Or just plain country bumpkin. In the best case scenario, you might resemble a foreign correspondent or a photo journalist. But for a traveller, it's almost as useful as duct tape.

No Sweat!

You can stuff loads of your belongings inside the pockets. It's especially useful in the airports, when you, on your way back home, have filled your luggage with all those souvenirs, awful tasting local liquor bottles and presents, and you're way beyond the airline weight limits. The solution is to wear your correspondent's vest and make use of its pocket space. You can fit several books there as well as some other heavier stuff like electric devices, chargers and so on. It's easy to toss the vest with all its contents in the security check box and have the whole entity X-rayed. You will also look rather silly when wandering about the airport wearing a fully loaded vest.

But it's not only the airport where the correspondent's vest is useful. On the road, it's a practical substitute for handbags and backbags, even without having to stuff it full. You will be able to carry your wallet, passports (if you have to keep them with you), medicine, pocket knife, lighter, notes, maps, pencils, phone, camera, torch etc. very close to your body. The vest naturally doesn't give an absolute protection against pickpockets, but it's harder to steal anything from your breast pocket than from your bag. Plus, you have everything handy should you need it immediately. You can also sew a secret pocket somewhere inside for your emergecy money.

There seems to be a very nice quality version of correspondent's vest on sale. I bought mine, a cheapo version, at Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam. Its design is quite military-esque, but it has served me well for couple of years. (Well, I recently pulled the slider off of one of the zippers, but what did you expect for a 15 dollar vest.) I learned the awesomeness of this fine piece of clothing from the excellent Travel Channel documentary Madventures by my countrymen Riku & Tunna, where Riku's regular gear is the mighty correspondent's vest.

How to Peel a Pineapple

Once you've tasted fresh pineapple plucked straight from the tree and chopped in front of your eyes, you know there's no going back to tinned chunks. Granted, the pineapples they sell in Western greengroceries can be raw and more bitter tasting than the ones you can buy on any decent beach in Southeast Asia. But peeling and slicing your own pineapple beats opening a can anytime.

This seems to be one the most economic (and probably time taking) way to prepare a pineapple wasting the precious flesh as little as possible. It also gives very nice looking groovy pineapple result. I have seen people peeling pineapples this way many times in Thailand, and finally one time in Vietnam I thought of filming the procedure. Notice the disfigured hand of the nice fruit seller lady.

First off, here's a fast version of the video, where you'll get the idea how to cut a pineapple by Fibonacci sequence. Scroll a bit down for the normal speed version.