What kind of wild vegetable is the net shoot that a person with insomnia craves this bitter vegetable with sour fish sauce?

Saigon is in the transition season, the rain is less frequent but every now and then it pours down, making people feel absent-minded, tired during the day and restless at night. Waking up in the middle of the night, unable to close my eyes, tossing and turning for a while, I miss my grandmother.

Grandma has been gone for nearly 20 years, her hometown has changed, the old house no longer has bamboo bushes swaying beside the green fence.

I have been wandering around Saigon for more than 10 years, the daily hustle and bustle just keeps me away so I rarely remember except for the nights I stay up all night.

Old people often have trouble sleeping. On windy days, at night, if you hear the bamboo bed creaking, you can be sure that the next morning you will see your grandmother struggling to pick net-shaped shoots (also known as longan or chum bao) from the fence.

At that time, I followed behind, supposedly helping to hold the basket but actually waiting for my grandmother to pick the ripe, fragrant, golden-yellow net fruits.

Bamboo shoots (passion flower, longan - a type of wild vegetable, a specialty vegetable) are a delicious dish and an effective sedative. Boiled bamboo shoots with sour fish sauce is a delicious dish with the right taste.

Grandma often said that plants are also medicine, if you know how to eat them, you won't have to go to the hospital all year round, and that the trellis is the plant she trusts the most, it can cure everything from body aches to insomnia and heat in the body. Therefore, grandma makes full use of the fences around the house to grow trellis, it is not only useful when the weather changes but also a familiar dish in my family's meals.

Bamboo shoots can be used to cook shrimp or meat soup or stir-fry, but my grandmother usually just boils them and dips them in minced lemongrass fish sauce or sour fish sauce.

Sour fish sauce is a Tay Ninh specialty made from shrimp, small fish (usually long tong fish, bamboo roots) mixed with salt, powdered sugar and powdered rice powder.

As the name suggests, this fish sauce has a slightly sour taste but is very rich because of the saltiness of the salt and the richness of the fish and shrimp. Gourmets often eat sour fish sauce with raw green beans or boiled pork, but for my grandmother, it is best served with bamboo shoots.

Pure fish sauce is usually a bit salty, so when I buy it, my grandmother often changes it a bit. She peels the pineapple, slices it into thin slices, puts it on the stove to fry until both sides are golden brown, then tears it into small pieces and puts it in the fish sauce jar. After a few days, the pineapple will absorb the fish sauce, and the fish sauce will be more flavorful. Before meals, my grandmother scoops the fish sauce into a bowl, adds a little sugar, green pepper and chili and it's done.

When I was little, I didn’t like to eat boiled bamboo shoots because they tasted a little bitter. My grandmother had to coax me to eat them many times before I agreed and became addicted. I miss those old lunches so much. On the cot on the sidewalk, the meal tray was sometimes just a plate of green boiled bamboo shoots, a bowl of red chili fish sauce and a bowl of vegetable soup, but everyone in my family ate and dipped them enthusiastically.

The boiled green net vegetables were crispy and cool, slightly bitter, mixed with the rich saltiness of the fish sauce, the slight sourness of the pineapple, and in a flash, the plate of vegetables was gone. At this time, my grandmother scooped half a bowl of vegetable broth for each person and did not forget to advertise: This is a cool broth, after drinking it, you won't be able to wear a hat when you go to bed at night!

Tay Ninh sour fish sauce, a delicious sauce used to dip boiled net shoots. Net shoots are the young shoots of the net tree, also known as longan tree, passion flower tree - a type of wild vegetable, a specialty vegetable.

Many days, even though my stomach was full but I still craved something, I would nag my grandmother to scrape off some burnt rice to eat with the fish sauce.

The fish sauce, about the size of a chopstick, was spread evenly on the inside of the crispy rice by my grandmother and then sandwiched together. I just had to take it out to the hammock and swing it, pretending to eat Doraemon donuts.

The net vines were not always green and sprouting regularly for my grandmother to pick. When the vines withered and the shoots thinned out, the daily vegetable plate was replaced with water spinach or sweet potato leaves. Sometimes, even when the weather was not bad, but perhaps because she missed them, at mealtimes my grandmother would say: If only I had net shoots dipped in sour fish sauce now, I would sleep well tonight!

Growing up, life had so many ups and downs that I had sleepless nights without any change in weather.

Thinking about the past, the present, the past, about myself and others, I remember the past, remembering the cool vegetable meals on summer afternoons and remembering my grandmother with her familiar saying: "If you dip the bamboo shoots in sour fish sauce, you won't have to worry about insomnia!"

The net shoot is the young tip of the net vine.

The net vine plant, also known as ay chum bao, is also known as passion flower, longan vine, and pink grass according to the Thai people, and net vine, mo pi, and mac quanh mon according to the Tay people. The longan vine and net vine have the scientific name Passiflora foetida L.

Source: https://danviet.vn/dot-luoi-la-ngon-rau-dai-gi-ma-mot-nguoi-kho-ngu-lai-them-rau-dang-dang-nay-cham-mam-chua-20241017235852907.htm