Mom cooks sticky rice with gac fruit

After Tet, the weather was still cold. The cold of January 2nd in the countryside was as fierce as winter. With the drizzle, my hands and feet always felt cold. Regularly, at around 2am, my mother woke up to cook sticky rice with gac fruit to sell. The red sticky rice pots, the fragrant aroma of sticky rice mixed with the aroma of gac fruit, spread throughout the small kitchen. I always remember my mother's mornings of cooking sticky rice with such vivid memories.

Since the previous afternoon, Mom had asked Dad to put a ladder up to the roof of the pigsty to pick the ripe gac fruits. Dad climbed up to pick each fruit, while Mom stood below to gently catch them. While putting the gac fruits into the basket, Mom would mumble and count the quantity, estimating how many pots of sticky rice she could cook. Sometimes, while looking up at the sky or thinking about something else, Mom would unsteadily drop the gac fruit and it would break on the ground. I had to run into the house to get a clean spoon and a bowl to salvage some of the usable gac flesh. Mom “blamed” Dad that he didn’t pass the gac fruit properly. Dad “scolded” Mom that it was the person who passed the gac fruit, but Dad was a professional, so how could he not pass it properly. The afternoon was more bustling and lively than ever in the small house.

My father planted Gac when he married my mother and had a small, pretty house. At first, my father only planted it so that it could climb behind the pigsty to make a cool cover, without thinking about making sticky rice and my mother had a chance to do that. The Gac vines were easy to grow, and they grew lush and green, covering both roofs. In the summer, my father personally went down to the deep pond to carry buckets of cool water to water the plants. When he came home from work in the fields, along the way, he saw buffalo and cow dung, baskets, and bamboo poles, and my mother did not forget to pick up a stick to bring them back to fertilize the plants. Or the rotten straw and humus, my mother would also take them to cover the base of the Gac tree to help it retain moisture. The Gac tree just grew lush and green, without needing any chemical fertilizers, and the fruit was abundant.

Early in the morning, mother sat at the corner of the market, next to the river with its clear blue water, her shadow reflected on the water like a small, quiet dot in life. The people who bought sticky rice were mainly vendors at the market, they bought a package of sticky rice for breakfast to warm their stomachs. Mother sat there, busy regardless of rain or shine. People also knew her face, came to buy sticky rice with gac fruit in joy, greeting and laughing. The sticky rice with gac fruit that mother made was really sticky, really fragrant, and could be eaten forever without getting bored. To eat with the sticky rice, mother also made sesame and peanut salt, which was rich, fragrant and nutritious. After each market session, mother opened the cloth bag containing money, sat and stroked it, counting each small bill. Mother was happy with the results of her labor, her mouth smiled brightly, saying that this money was used to pay for this or that child's school fees, and that money was used to buy a piglet so that when it grew up, it could be sold for a little money. Thanks to the sticky rice with gac fruit, my mother saved every penny, collected money to help my siblings with their studies, buy clothes and shoes. Growing up, every time I looked back at my childhood, I always had my mother's image in the early mornings with the fragrant smell of gac fruit. My mother worked hard day and night, sweating to raise me to become a person.

I grew up and went to school far from home. Now, although my mother is old, she still wakes up early in the morning to cook sticky rice with gac fruit and bring it to the corner of the market to sell. Every time I pass by the sticky rice stall on the street, my mother's image always appears in my mind. She is thin, diligent, taking care of each grain of sticky rice, each piece of gac fruit to cook sticky rice. To me, the sticky rice my mother cooked is not only a memory of a delicious dish but also the love and silent sacrifice she gave to my sisters and me. And I feel so happy to have grown up with that love. Sweet and endlessly happy.

Source: http://baolamdong.vn/van-hoa-nghe-thuat/202503/me-nau-xoi-gac-d6d667e/