When it comes to rat meat, many people will feel disgusted, but in Dinh Bang, it is considered a specialty. Although not as popular as dog, chicken or beef, Bac Ninh people still use rat meat as a daily food. Many families even display this specialty on their wedding trays.
According to villagers, Dinh Bang does not hunt rats for a living like many other places and rat meat is not a dish only for the poor. It comes from helping the crops to be bountiful. In Dinh Bang, people catch field rats to eat all year round, but if you want to follow the villagers to hunt rats, tourists should come here after the harvest because the rats are plentiful and fat. If you are imagining cats wandering around the alleys, when entering the village, tourists will be surprised to see that instead of cats, every house here raises dogs to catch rats.
Dinh Bang people use dogs to hunt rats, but absolutely do not dig holes. This method helps to catch many rats and they are still alive after being caught. Using traps is also a popular way to catch rats here, but rats often break their legs and die before the villagers can collect them. In addition, the traditional way of catching rats is still applied during the straw season. Villagers burn straw and fan the smoke into the holes, leaving only one door open, forcing the rats to run out and into the trap.
After the harvest, you can follow the boys of Dinh Bang village to hunt mice. Photo: vnphoto
Field mouse meat is white and delicious like chicken, used as a main ingredient, combined with additives to prepare many dishes from simple to sophisticated. In which, the most popular is boiled meat pressed with lemon leaves. Boiled meat, take out and press on a cutting board to drain the fat, leave for a few hours, take out and chop, sprinkle with lemon leaves and dip with salt, lemon and pepper, it will be crispy and more flavorful than chicken.
Equally popular is the dish of field mouse cooked with bean curd. The meat is chopped into pieces and fried on the stove with fish sauce until fragrant, then add tofu and braise. When removed from heat, add some Vietnamese coriander and eat with rice noodles.
Grilled mice are best eaten in the cold season. Photo: dlna
For gourmets, stir-fried mouse with lemongrass and chili is a dish not to be missed when coming to Dinh Bang. After marinating with garlic, spices, five-spice powder, soy sauce, the meat is stir-fried in a pan of oil with fried onions, garlic, and crushed lemongrass and chili. When cooked, scoop it onto a plate, the aroma of lemongrass and the spicy taste of chili will blend with the fatty taste of the meat, eating it while it is still hot is probably the best dish.
In addition, field mice are also processed into dishes such as jelly mice, fake dog mice, fried mice, sweet and sour stir-fried mice or tomato sauce, making many people salivate when the dishes are displayed before their eyes. People in Dinh Bang said that eating field mice is very healthy, has the effect of strengthening the body, reducing pain, and healing bones.
Nowadays, although mouse meat in Dinh Bang is not as popular as before when it was available in many places, Hanoi gourmets still often come to Dinh Bang to enjoy this rustic dish. Coming here, it is not too difficult to find shops selling dishes made from field mice in Xuan Dai, Thinh Lang, Ha, Thuong, and Dinh villages.
If you have the opportunity to come to Dinh Bang and have never enjoyed the specialties of Kinh Bac homeland, put aside your initial fear and try delicious dishes made from rat meat, you will definitely be addicted and want to eat them again.
