Shredded coconut jam - old memories of Tet

*Coconut jam made from purple leaves, pandan leaves, condensed milk with the old taste*

One year, a friend who had lived in Australia for many years returned home. He visited my house and wished me a happy new year on the first day of the year, his eyes widening at the lush pot of purple leaves that I had lovingly placed right on the porch, with lush green pandan leaves.

Although I live in the city, I still keep the old ways, trying to grow things that are familiar to me. You will be surprised to know that the beautiful green and purple coconut jams I display on the table to serve you are marinated and cooked with the juice of two familiar homegrown plants.

The two “memory-hungry” people slowly picked up each strand of coconut jam with “hometown” flavors: pandan leaves, purple leaves, condensed milk, coffee… exactly like the Tet jams of the 80s and 90s.

This Tet, you told me to try to wrap some coconut jam strands into roses for you, put them in a jam box just like the old days, so you can bring them to Australia to give to your relatives. Your relatives are old people far away from home. They pick up the coconut jam strands, to remember the Tet flavor of a distant homeland.

I grated the coconut into strings. From the coconut “strings” I rolled myself into a proud rose, more beautiful than any jam on the Tet jam tray.

How to make coconut fibers “swallow” for many times in a pan full of sugar water without breaking? The secret is to choose the right young coconut. The coconut is not too old, not too young, the coconut meat is just thick enough, can be shredded without being mushy like young coconut, not crunchy like dry coconut.

Another secret lies in the amount of sugar. Coconuts that have just enough sugar will not break when cooked, but too much sugar will make the coconut strands hard, brittle, and easily broken when stirred. My mother’s traditional recipe for making coconut jam, I have tried to “cultivate” through many Tet seasons to produce batches of coconut jam as I wish, it is not easy!

Every time I stand in the kitchen making jam, I am filled with tears remembering my old home garden. A garden in the truest sense of the word: dozens of coconut trees, dozens of mango trees, several rows of banana trees, a few lemongrass bushes, a few patches of bo bo, a few star gooseberry trees...

Every time Tet comes, the garden is filled with the smell of banana leaves that my father peeled off and dried to make sticky rice cakes for my mother. My father climbed up the coconut tree, knocked on the coconut shells to check which bunches were just browned (rice cakes) and then brought them down for my mother to make jam.

At that time, I stood on the ground, pointing and asking my father to pick me some ripe coconuts - and later I found out why my father laughed so hard: "Dry coconuts, my son. No one calls for ripe coconuts". My father knew that I only liked to eat the pulp of dry coconuts, even though they...smelled terribly of soap!

Now that my father is gone and my mother is in her seventies, the children in the family only like young coconut jam. But I still make shredded coconut, as a way for me to revisit my own Tet, so far away, to feel the longing and longing.

Those beautiful strands of coconut jam will be offered to our ancestors and heaven and earth at the moment of New Year’s Eve. The fatty taste of young coconut, the elegant aroma of pandan leaves, the deep purple color of purple leaves… will remain in our memories for a long time to come.

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/mut-dua-soi-tet-xua-thuong-nho-3147838.html