The ultimate Western Highlands termite mushroom after the rain: Boiled and dipped in fish sauce, it's also 'delicious'

The first basket of termite mushrooms of the season, just picked from the garden, was taken by Vut's mother - a Jarai person - to a temporary market by the roadside to sell to earn money to buy rice and meat - Photo: TAN LUC

Waiting for the rain to wet the soil for a few weeks, in the morning I visited the garden and saw the pure white termite mushrooms gently emerging from a long sleep of the dry season.

Termite mushrooms are delicious when cooked in soup, porridge, stir-fried, or hot pot.

A walk around the garden, the ladies have a delicious tray of termite mushrooms for lunch. During the mushroom season, gourmets can also be lucky enough to buy rare items at the small markets along the roadside.

In the afternoon, passing by the temporary market on the roadside to Ia Grai (Gia Lai), some Jarai women enthusiastically offered me a bunch of freshly picked termite mushrooms.

The batch of mushrooms was not much, about 2 kilos, but customers competed to buy them as if they were afraid of missing out on the opportunity to enjoy the delicious food.

The mushrooms had bloomed in the afternoon, their stems almost a hand's span tall. Several gourmets stood by, advising that termite mushrooms were delicious in soup, porridge, stir-fry, or hot pot.

The simpler the cooking, the better. Don't add too many spices or it will lose the mushroom flavor.

The white termite mushrooms that are still covered in soil are highly sought after by gourmets because of their special sweetness - Photo: TAN LUC

Vut's mother, a Jarai woman, shows off the mushrooms she and her daughter picked from the coffee garden this morning. It has become a habit that every year the large termite nest in her garden yields several harvests of termite mushrooms.

Unable to finish eating, Vut's mother took the basket of mushrooms and some fallen durians to the market to sell to earn money to buy rice and meat.

Vut's mother said that termite mushrooms have been sought after for many years, so they are very valuable. Each kilo sells for 200,000 VND and there are still people competing to buy them. Therefore, if we catch 1-2 kg of mushrooms a day, the whole family will have enough money to buy groceries for the day.

Termite mushroom porridge is a special hangover remedy that is not available in all seasons - Photo: TAN LUC

Holding a bag of mushrooms in her hand, Ms. Le Thi Du, a resident of Ia Der commune, Ia Grai district, went to buy more sweet potato leaves. This housewife said she loves termite mushrooms but doesn't dare buy much because the prices are too expensive at the beginning of the season.

To help the whole family enjoy a bit of the special flavor of the rainy season, Mrs. Du came up with a way to "mix" sweet potato shoots into the stir-fried termite mushrooms. According to Mrs. Du, this method helps enhance the flavor of the dish that the whole family can pick up with chopsticks...

The old lady with many years of experience said that the delicious taste of termite mushrooms is very special, the mushroom stem is both sweet and chewy, and does not get mushy even after being cooked for a long time. Therefore, just boiling it and dipping it in fish sauce is already delicious, no need to add any other seasoning.

Customers from all over the world come to buy termite mushrooms.

The first delicious piece of the season not only attracts locals, but in recent years, diners from far away have also been eager to hunt it down.

Riding her motorbike nearly 20 kilometers to buy termite mushrooms to send to customers in Ho Chi Minh City, Ms. Dang Thu, residing in Chu A commune, Pleiku city, said she was a bit disappointed because she spent the whole morning only collecting a few ounces of mushrooms.

The newly sprouted termite mushrooms, still plump and not yet fully grown, are selected products, priced up to a million VND/kg - Photo: TAN LUC

As a professional, glancing at the trays of mushrooms sold by Jarai mothers, Ms. Thu said that those were only grade 2 mushrooms, which her customers did not buy. What they requested were termite mushrooms with buds, caps that had not yet opened, used for steaming and baking in foil.

This driver said that this is the best termite mushroom, with the highest nutritional and delicious taste. Therefore, customers are willing to spend 1 million VND to buy 1kg of this type of mushroom.

"Customers offer such high prices but it's not easy to make money. The mushrooms grow at night and by morning, when people pick them, they've already bloomed. To pick the right type of mushroom, people have to use lamps to find them in the middle of the night.

But in the middle of the night, the mushrooms have not yet bloomed, so it is difficult to detect the mushroom nest with a light. Therefore, sometimes we search all day and still cannot buy a single kilo" - Ms. Thu shared.

A Jarai woman sells termite mushrooms along the road to Ia Grai, Gia Lai. This season, termite mushrooms have appeared sporadically at temporary roadside markets - Photo: TAN LUC

People who have been attached to this land for a long time say that over time, termites have become less numerous and with it, termite mushrooms have gradually become rarer.

People say that maybe because the gardens now use too many pesticides, it has killed the termite population. And if the termites are gradually killed, the termite mushroom will suffer the same fate because they live together in symbiosis, without termites there will be no mushroom.

Ms. Nguyen Hien - who has been selling termite mushrooms in Ia Grai for many years, said that about twenty years ago, during the rainy season, termite mushrooms would grow white in the forest, leaving nothing to do. But now, if you want to have mushrooms, you have to search everywhere, a little bit from each place because there is no supply.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/cuc-pham-nam-moi-tay-nguyen-sau-mua-luoc-cham-mam-cung-ngon-quan-luoi-20240630092707441.htm