VI
EN
Back when we were kids of the late 70s generation, wearing tattered pants (late elementary, early middle school), we'd spend half the day at school, the other half tending buffaloes, cutting grass, helping our parents with farm work, or wandering around the low-lying rice paddies in the countryside. Catching cicadas, climbing trees, wading through rice paddies, catching fish, running, jumping, shouting, diving, climbing hills, swimming in ponds... there was nothing we didn't do. We were happy, healthy, and full of joy, unlike the children of today who are nearsighted, pale, and look bewildered and miserable with backpacks overflowing with books that ache their backs.
I guess pennywort can be found everywhere in the Northern Delta, but perhaps it's because the land of Thanh Hoa province, with its abundant produce and many talented people, and the occasional typhoon each year, that this "vegetable" has become so famous. As mentioned above, the unruly children, wearing torn pants and flip-flops (barefoot), would go to school in the morning, eat a few bowls of rice with fish sauce, and then in the afternoon each would grab a hoe and a small basket (a shallow basket woven from thick, sturdy bamboo strips with large holes) and excitedly call out to each other to go "gather pennywort."
A field of lush green water spinach.
"Cậy" is a verb, but the more common name is "cạy," which back then we called it "cạy," meaning to (use your hands) to pry something up (in this case, a purslane plant).
So, when gathering herbs, why is it called "picking" instead of "harvesting"? "Picking" (or plucking, seizing...) is the act of using hands to detach flowers, fruits, leaves, and branches from the plant to take home. But purslane is actually a herbaceous plant with small leaves and stems that creep along the ground, growing in tangled, winding clumps rather than tall grass. To "harvest purslane" properly and effectively, we walked along the edges of rice fields and dikes. This Qingming Festival is the time when purslane grows greenest and most tender. Finding a patch of land with plenty of purslane, we stopped to claim our spot, placed our basket down, and used a hoe to "dig" a square piece of land about the size of a brick (about 20-30cm long and wide). The soil on dikes and rice field edges is usually moist and soft. After digging, we picked up the plants with our hands and sat down... prying/picking each purslane plant out, throwing them into a sieve.
They would dig the soil, pick the leaves, then dig the soil again, and pick the leaves again… all afternoon. The most skilled ones might even gather a whole basketful of tall, lush purslane. In places where the purslane grew thickly, tender, and the soil was soft and moist, to save time and effort, they wouldn't even bother digging; they could just pry it up and put it directly into the basket.
Usually, the guards, with their horns made from seashells or buffalo horns, would forbid us from picking wild herbs on the dike slopes. They said that digging up too much soil would damage the dikes and be dangerous during the flood season. But if the main roads leading to the fields or the embankments were small and far away, requiring us to wade, sometimes, to meet our mother's quota of bringing home a basket of wild herbs, we would "time" the guards to see if they were away so we could sneak onto the dike and steal some.
Gathering wild herbs is quite a meticulous task, but sometimes it brings unexpected joys. Just after finishing the hoeing and digging up the soil, suddenly a… mouse hole, or a crab or frog hole… that’s pure fun! Shouting to each other to catch crabs and frogs, or running around looking for straw and firewood to smoke out the field mice, the clear, cheerful laughter and chirping of children creating a lively atmosphere across the field on a damp, drizzly late spring afternoon.
In my hometown, there are two types of Centella asiatica. The edible type is the common Centella asiatica, with larger, round leaves that are notched at the stem end, and stems that turn purplish-red as they age. Mature Centella asiatica plants also have tubers. When we come across a Centella asiatica plant with a large base, and we feel a tuber when we shake it, we often try to pick it whole. I remember once in Tibet, watching the Tibetan tour guide count the individual cordyceps to pack them into boxes for sale to tourists, I exclaimed in surprise mixed with delight, because it looked very much like… the small, rough, dark gray tubers of mature Centella asiatica from my hometown.
Centella asiatica is now often ground into powder.
The roots of the pennywort plant have a crunchy texture when eaten, similar to biting into a chicken leg. A basket with many roots indicates that pennywort is nearing the end of its season, with almost all of the fresh, tender, sweet green leaves gone.
The second type is called fragrant pennywort. This type is usually inedible because it has a pungent smell, thin leaves, small and crooked stems, and is translucent and smaller than regular pennywort leaves, with rounded edges and tiny hairs all over the leaves and stems. It looks more beautiful and grows more abundantly than the edible type.
It's true that useless things are often abundant. After harvesting the common purslane, one must pick out the fragrant purslane and weeds mixed in and discard them. The best quality parts are taken to ponds or lakes to be washed clean and brought back. The final product is soaked in well water, sprinkled with salt for disinfection, then taken out and cleaned of weeds one last time before being cooked.
Minced meat soup with pennywort is a modern-day delicacy; its sweet, refreshing, fragrant, and delicious taste needs no further description. But back then, there was no minced meat to make soup with. My mother would grab a whole basket of pennywort in one hand, and with the other, she'd quickly chop it with a knife—a few grabs and she'd be done. It was the "Qingming Festival in the third month..." but also the "eighth day of the third month," meaning the lean season, when the rice in the granaries and jars was almost gone, and the rice in the fields was just past its milky stage and beginning to ripen. I remember one meal, seven people in the family—parents and five little children—but only two bowls of rice. The rice pot was boiling over, and my mother opened it and poured in a whole basket of pennywort. When the rice was cooked and served, every bowl was a striking dark green color from the pennywort...
Centella asiatica is often used in cooking with minced meat and dried shrimp.
Eating rice mixed with purslane made you hungry again very quickly, and it wasn't as filling as rice mixed with sweet potatoes or cassava. And what about side dishes? Back then, there was no way to eat main courses until you were almost full like now, and then have a little rice at the end of the meal to add some starch. It was just a watery pot of vegetable soup with a bowl of fish sauce. Adding a little fish sauce felt meaningful, but purslane mixed with rice and soup was no different from mixing vegetables with vegetables in a haphazard way.
I'm sharing this to reminisce about the memories of that quiet, simple, rustic wild vegetable that became a part of my childhood, contributing to my growth into adulthood. And reading this, perhaps many of you have found some ideas for interesting dishes to add to your family meals: minced meat and water spinach soup, stir-fried water spinach, water spinach smoothie, or even rice mixed with water spinach.
As a true pennywort lover, it wasn't until over 20 years ago, while wandering around Saigon working just enough to pay rent, gas, and monthly food expenses, that I discovered pennywort smoothies. The green, sweet, and refreshing pennywort juice, however, somehow felt slightly gritty no matter where I drank it—whether from Uncle Ba's roadside iced herbal drink cart near Bong Bridge or in an air-conditioned café—and the taste and aroma of the juice were a bit strong, not as pure as pennywort picked from the rice paddies and dikes of my hometown.
It's true that homeland – no matter where we go, we will never forget each other…
