The taste of Tet in the old countryside

*The article is a memoir by author Le Hong Lam, about the Tet holidays in his childhood memories in the Northern countryside.

This year Tet comes early, just entering the New Year of the Gregorian calendar, Tet is already behind us. Usually, at the end of January of the Gregorian calendar (in the countryside it is called the upper calendar), when winter turns to ripe, when all the things of the old year are already in full swing, when:

"I heard the cold creeping in the wind

The ferry trips are deserted"

At that time, Tet slowly came to every home.

Tonight when I came home from work, my mother cooked me a bowl of braised carp with carefully salted pickled cabbage, sprinkled with some onions and a few slices of fresh chili, and served with jellied meat. I smelled the smell of my distant homeland mixed with the chilly weather of the last day of winter. I suddenly felt: Tet had arrived at my doorstep.

The poor lowland village of my hometown is truly typical of the North Central Delta. December (the 12th lunar month or also known as the lower calendar) is usually the time to start the winter-spring rice planting season. If before the Kitchen Gods' Festival, the fields have enough water, the seedlings have been pulled out, and the rice has been planted, then Tet is considered complete. The villagers leisurely go out to buy beans, buy sticky rice, choose seaweed leaves, and dry gai leaves (the type of leaves mixed with sticky rice flour to make gai cake) to prepare for Tet. If the cold weather comes continuously, the rice seeds will rot (rot, not grow into seedlings), and must be incubated over and over again until the seedlings have enough leaves, or the fields do not have enough water, and by the 27th or 28th of Tet, the planting is still not finished, then that Tet is considered to be unsettling and less exciting.

I remember one year on the morning of the third day of Tet, my cousin came over to visit and saw my mother tidying up the dishes after a Tet holiday. My aunt and I greeted each other, and my mother asked him if he hadn't pulled up the rice seedlings yet but had planted some more fields. He smiled and said: the third day of Tet is still very strong, so let's enjoy it today. Talking about Tet now, the third day is sometimes the "main" season of Tet, the activities of greeting, visiting, eating, drinking, and having fun are still bustling. That's how hard-working and diligent the poor countryside was in the past.

In front of my house there is the biggest pond in the commune, located opposite the communal house yard, in the feng shui style of the Ly and Chanh ancestors in the past: stepping out of the communal house, wading down to the pond bridge, one can enter the pond water with bare hands. Every time before Tet, there is a team pulling in nets (probably hired by the Cooperative), they use nets to sweep up all the big and small fish and shrimp in the pond, bringing them up to divide among the members of the Commune. The day of fishing in the pond and dividing the fish in the warehouse yard is truly a festival day for the whole village and commune, every household is bustling and excited, children, despite their bulky winter clothes, also come out to watch, even though they don't get any part, just pushing into the crowd to see the silver carp that has just been caught from the basket, sparkling white and wriggling, is already a joy. There are some lucky children, when the head of the commune group in the fish division group sees a few fish left or a bunch of fresh shrimp, they immediately pick them up and give them to the children standing around: let them grill and eat! The whole group cheered as if they had won the lottery, the people next to them saw a “good deal” and immediately gathered around. A group of people were bustling around looking for a pile of straw (rice husks, rice sawdust and rotten straw) that was still burning or quickly went to collect firewood, cleaned the fish and shrimp that were given to them and grilled them to eat. The most delicious seafood dish I had ever tasted seemed to still retain the taste of the countryside, the delicious sweetness permeating the area.

This fishing and fish-sharing occasion usually takes place on days close to Tet, and is usually on cold days. My house is close to the lagoon, the fishermen who pull the net after each round of pulling take turns or when it is time to eat, they often run to ask for warmth by the red-hot wood stove, waving their hands frantically over the stove, their mouths shivering with cold. I wonder if it was from that time that the folk song was born in my village:

“I want to marry the net guy.

"I'm dark but I have a lot of money to spend"

I wonder if through the times of pulling the net that built up strong, muscular muscles, the nights of warming his feet and shivering mouths by the warm crackling fire of the old countryside, has any "net-puller" managed to "cast his net" and steal away a village girl from my hometown?

The fish in the pond were divided by the Cooperative, and my mother would “manipulate” them into different parts: the biggest ones were cut into 4 pieces, the 2 middle pieces were fried crispy and put into a big pot to save until Tet to worship the ancestors and eat Tet. The tails and heads, along with smaller fish and a bunch of shrimp, a bunch of small ditch fish, my mother would either braise, fry or boil with pickles for the whole family to eat gradually while waiting for Tet. However, in my memory and the feeling that still lingers until now, the dishes of fish heads braised with pickles, the bunch of small fish braised with salted eggplant sprinkled with a little fresh onion, dill, and chopped chili… are still the most delicious, most flavorful dishes, fresh and fragrant, imbued with the bustling, passionate atmosphere of the days before Tet in the countryside. Just thinking about it makes me miss it so much and look forward to it.

Le Hong Lam