Pancakes with the taste of childhood – photo n. DUOC
Sitting at her house and eating banh xiao reminds me a lot of my childhood when I was still in the countryside, in the days of the billion dollar rain, my mother would sit in the kitchen and make pancakes for my brothers and sisters.
At that time, every 9th and 10th lunar month, every time there was a heavy rain with the cold weather of the first season, almost every house in my hometown put pancakes to eat (locals in my hometown Quang Ngai often used to).
My family was like that, at that time my family was in the “category” of the poorest family in the village, but whenever the rainy season came, my mother also tried to make pancake for my sisters’ enjoyment, longing to eat Their children used to be less. They.
I remember, every day my mother intended to make pancakes for my sisters tomorrow, that night she told my sisters the “good news”, she said: “It will rain tomorrow, I will make pancakes for you. You eat it up.” ..” Just hearing my mother say a few words about casting pancakes, my sisters and I jumped with joy.
At that time, whenever I wanted to eat pancakes, I just took out the rice and soaked it in water to soften it, then ground it into cakes. Normally, to make bun xiao, I need to soak the rice for several hours before it becomes soft, then I need to grind it.
When I woke up in the morning, my mother assigned me the “duty” to bring soaked rice to Ms. Thu’s house near the “Pagoda Market” (the market in my commune at the time was near a temple, so people used to come there) To remember from, the commune often calls it the Pagoda Market. ) to grind flour for making pancake.
Life in the village is still very poor, so the wages for grinding the flour to make banh xiao are usually paid in rice, not money. Ms. Thu knows that my family is poor, so she usually grinds just to help, not for rice or wages.
When you bring rice water powder home, you usually chop some chives into the flour, add a little yellow turmeric water to make the color. I remember at that time the pancake molds were round molds made of cast iron, bigger than the palm of an adult’s hand. The castor-cheek pancake contains only garden-picked mushrooms and sometimes some shrimp and prawns that my father found while working in the fields.
On cold rainy days, I often sit in the kitchen watching my mother make pancakes. Two round molds on the hot brazier, Mama took the core of a banana leaf that had been crushed at one end and then smoothed it and rubbed it evenly over the mold. The mold was hot, mom started pouring the rice flour water into the mold, then added the bean sprouts, mushrooms, and closed the lid. After a few minutes, the pancakes become golden and fragrant.
Sister Hai spread a mat on the ground in the middle of the house, her mother prepared pancakes, and the whole family sat down to eat. The smooth, delicious taste of the pancake with a cup of sweet and sour fish sauce made my brothers and sisters eat and breathe, eating until they were full but still craving…
Nowadays, pancakes have all the ingredients, but for me personally, there can be no pancake that is as delicious and full of such beautiful memories as those cast-cheek pancakes in the past.
(TagstoTranslate) Quang’s Pancakes(T) Ban Xeo(T) Food(T) Vietnamese cuisine
