Taste of Homeland: Banana Dessert of Childhood

Banana sweet soup is a popular dessert in my hometown, a region in the south of Quang Ngai. The dish is delicious, cheap and easy to make, so everyone likes it. The ingredients are all homegrown. Bananas are also from the garden, and dry coconuts can be obtained by asking an uncle to climb up a coconut tree. I was given an important task at that time, which was to buy tapioca and vermicelli (tapioca starch). I thought it was important, because without tapioca starch, there would be no banana sweet soup. Eating banana sweet soup without tapioca starch would be boring and uninteresting.

Banana tea

Tapioca flour is the ingredient that takes the longest to prepare, so it is her priority. She carefully washes the tapioca flour, then puts it on the fire and boils it until it softens. While waiting for the tapioca flour, she turns to "process" the bunch of bananas. Her hands quickly remove the golden layers, place the bananas on a tray, then use a knife to cut each one diagonally into bite-sized pieces. When finished, she marinates them with sugar, not forgetting to add a little salt. Cooking sweet soup without salt sounds strange. But banana sweet soup with salt has a very rich flavor.

Let the banana pieces rest for a while, she prepared the coconut milk. She separated each piece of coconut shell, then turned the machete upside down, knocked on the coconut shell with a "crack", the coconut shell broke in half, she started to scrape the coconut, squeeze the coconut milk. The fresh white coconut milk, the fatty aroma stirred my every breath.

After a while, the tapioca and potato starch were ready. She quickly scooped them out and boiled water to make sweet soup. While waiting for the water to boil, she put the pan on to roast peanuts. The sound of the peanuts running back and forth on the pan, crackling, crackling, made my heart flutter.

When the beans were cooked, the water was boiling. She put the bananas in the pot, added tapioca starch and potato starch, and started adding sugar until it was sweet enough. Finally, she added coconut milk. While my grandmother was cooking the sweet soup, I was given another task, which was to crush the peanuts. So when she took the pot of sweet soup down, everything was ready.

The aroma of coconut milk mixed with the sweetness of sugar and ripe bananas, plus the richness of peanuts made everyone admire. The special and attractive part for the children was the tapioca starch. Tapioca starch was only one transparent color, while tapioca starch had seven rainbow colors, very eye-catching. Back then, whenever I ate banana sweet soup, I had to try to choose the tapioca starch.

Every time I go back to my hometown, I always want to eat banana sweet soup. If I am lazy, I go to my hometown to buy it, if I am diligent, I cook it at home. The taste may be different, but my memories are always as sweet as the sweet soup of my childhood.

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