My hometown has a funny story that many people know. A high-ranking leader visited and asked, “What are the outstanding specialties of Nghe An?”, the local leader humorously replied, “Reporting, there are two famous specialties far and wide: football and eel porridge!”.
Yes, coming to Nghe An or talking about Nghe An in recent years, without talking about football or eel porridge/eel porridge is really... not having been, or not knowing about this hot and windy land of Laos. This short article is dedicated to the story of raising, processing and making Nghe An eel porridge/soup along with the "'echoes" of the specialty that many people have known, enjoyed once and then hope to have the next time, the next time...
First of all, the eel is native to most rural areas here and there. In Nghe An, the low-lying rice fields/rice granary of Yen Thanh is the “capital of eels” because the deep-lying fields here are very suitable for the reproduction and development of eels as well as many other freshwater fish species.
A colleague of ours in Nghe An, who is a reporter covering agriculture and is familiar with all the roads, numbers, and indicators in the rice district, once "boasted" that in Yen Thanh, every 200mm of rain would flood at least 400/12,500ha of rice area.
To see, this place is a low-lying area, a water-bearing area, with many disadvantages for production and life, but also has countless advantages, if we know how to control and exploit nature. The story of the eel in Yen Thanh specifically speaks to that.
After many years of struggling, exploring and learning, Yen Thanh people have created 3 popular ways to catch eels, which are definitely not the very laborious and ineffective way of "draining and digging mud to catch them all" like in many places. That is the unique trick of finding "the" eels along the banks of rice fields and ponds, then skillfully searching, grabbing the eel's head and quickly putting it in the basket.
That is to catch eels with bait like fishing, flicking water to call eels or placing bait right in front of the "ma" waiting for the eel to eat the bait and then jerking it quickly like catching fish. The third most popular way is to set a trap with bait every night, and collect the trap in the morning...
According to the experience of many eel “experts”, early February and early July every year is the breeding and development season of the rice field eel. At that time, the eels come to shore to find holes to lay eggs and hatch. The time when the eels are fattest is late March, early April, or late August to September, when the spring rice or summer-autumn rice plants flower and form ears.
The story worth mentioning is that in Yen Thanh for a long time, the profession of catching eels, processing and consuming the products has been a hot job for farmers, especially in the "capital" of Long Thanh. People have learned how to buy eels in the village, in the commune, then spread to other communes, districts, know how to process and consume the products for all needs inside and outside the province, including export.
In Long Thanh, at first only a few households were engaged in the eel purchasing business in Nam Son hamlet, now more households in Bac Son, Dong Son and Phan Thanh hamlets have joined in, bringing the number of eel workers to 300 people with an average income of 4-5 million VND/month. It is estimated that Long Thanh alone processes and consumes up to 1,000 tons of finished eel products each year.
If Yen Thanh is the famous “capital of eel”, Vinh City is the “capital of eel porridge/eel porridge” attracting a large number of diners from inside and outside the province. Not only tourists from near and far, but also Nghe An people far from home, every time they return to their hometown, to Vinh, find it difficult to ignore the “eel porridge” dish (lots of eel, little porridge) at Ba Lan restaurant, Cua Nam ward, from Vinh to Nam Dan, Ba Vo restaurant in “eel porridge street” Ho Sy Duong, Hung Binh ward or Ba Ngo restaurant also in Hung Binh ward…
These simple shops do not need any advertising to be bustling with customers every morning and every afternoon. Enjoy it once and you will remember it forever, wanting to come back. Not to mention, recently there is a service to take away and send it far away, as long as customers have a need.
Then not only in Vinh but also in many provinces and cities, the restaurant "Nghe An eel" was opened. In Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, if you want to have eel porridge or Nghe An eel soup, just make a phone call and the restaurant will deliver it to your door, the quality is genuine and impeccable.
Recently, some people in Nghe An have also processed instant dishes from eel, which are not only available on domestic supermarket shelves but also exported to Australia, England, Korea, Japan, etc. That is the appeal and spread of a dish that is not only delicious but also a precious medicine.
According to Oriental medicine, eel has a sweet taste, has the effect of nourishing blood and qi, warming yang, benefiting the spleen, nourishing the liver and kidneys, strengthening tendons and bones, eliminating rheumatism, clearing the meridians... and is used to treat fatigue, coughs, diabetes, aching tendons and bones, and body weakness.
The raw material of Yen Thanh eel, processed by Vinh restaurant into eel porridge, eel soup served with bread, wet rice paper/rolled rice paper..., was once known by Great Big Story company of CNN television station in the faraway United States and ranked as one of the 7 unique breakfast dishes in the world, comparable to Mandazi sweet bread of Kenya, Kuymax (made from cream and yellow corn flour) of Türkiye, catfish served with corn soup of the United States, Patra cake of India, Za'aTar cake of Lebanon, Mohinga fish noodle dish of Myanmar...
So, without spending billions on advertising, it was still broadcast for 1'48" on CNN through a character's experience program, and it has not had the honor of being visited by foreign leaders to become more famous far and wide like Obama's bun cha in Hanoi, but surely Nghe An's eel specialty still makes diners "sore noses", has an unusual attraction thanks to its special rustic flavor and unique charm.
Indeed, Nghe An eel is not just a funny story somewhere but is a "strong brand" of a delicious, nutritious dish, famous domestically and gradually spreading to... the world.
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