TikToker eats oranges with shrimp paste: Thought it was a 'like', turns out it's a Ha Tinh specialty

Oranges are grown a lot in Huong Son district, Ha Tinh province.

Bu orange is a specialty orange variety grown in Huong Son district (Ha Tinh province), harvested around Tet.

Oranges appeared in this area hundreds of years ago and today have become an agricultural product that brings good income to farmers.

When green, the orange has a thin skin and is very sour to eat, but when ripe, the skin becomes spongy, rough, and easy to peel. Peeling off the peel of a ripe orange, you can see that the orange has a lot of fibers.

Orange peel has a characteristic aroma, can be dried and placed in wardrobes, refrigerators, and corners of the house to create a fragrance and repel ants and cockroaches.

When ripe, the mandarin orange is much sweeter, with a slight sour aftertaste. If you are only used to eating mandarin oranges or sweet mandarin oranges, it will be difficult to like mandarin oranges. Mandarin oranges are for those who like oranges that still have a slightly sour taste.

The reason people call this type of orange by the name of "buffalo orange" is because the orange segments are often uneven, mixed in size, offsetting each other. When ripe, "buffalo orange" is much larger than other types of orange, some fruits weigh up to half a kilo.

Local people also consider the orange as a very effective medicine for treating colds, sore throats, coughs and hangovers.

The pomelo harvest season lasts from the beginning of the 12th lunar month until the end of January.

Oranges with shrimp paste is a unique combination of Huong Son people, Ha Tinh.

Ms. Bui Khuyen - a "child" of Ha Tinh hometown currently living in Hanoi - said that pomelo is also famous when combined with a special spice, which is shrimp paste (also known as ruoc).

However, not everyone knows how to eat pomelos with shrimp paste, usually only locals know about this interesting combination. Even many other districts in Ha Tinh also sell pomelos but people do not eat them with shrimp paste.

When eating, each orange segment will be peeled and dipped into a bowl of shrimp paste mixed with lemon and chili. For those who can eat it, the rich flavor of the shrimp paste will help to overcome the sour taste of the orange, creating an unmistakable flavor.

Ms. Khuyen said that many people who eat tangerines with shrimp paste have to prepare stomach ache medicine. But for those who like it and are used to it like her, eating it regularly still feels delicious and has no health problems.

"This season, whenever I think of tangerines with shrimp paste, I crave them" - she shared.

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Not only Ms. Khuyen, many "children" of Ha Tinh have known and tried this dish.

Phan Tuan Anh – a TikToker born and raised in Huong Son, Ha Tinh has eaten tangerines with shrimp paste many times. He also made a video sharing this experience.

Tuan Anh shared that in his hometown, this is a familiar dish to cure colds and hangovers. Since he was a child, he saw people in his hometown eat it a lot.

“Oranges are very juicy and sour, and go well with shrimp paste, so even if you don't have a cold or hangover, people still eat oranges with shrimp paste because it's delicious.”

Currently, he lives in Vinh City (Nghe An province), and has never seen anyone here eat oranges this way.

Even when he posted a video of himself eating tangerines with shrimp paste, many people commented that he was eating to get "likes" without knowing that this is a unique way of eating tangerines of the people of Huong Son, Ha Tinh.

Because the oranges are harvested close to Tet, every Tet, Huong Son people cannot lack this fruit in their homes, both to eat and to burn incense, said Mr. Tuan Anh.

Photos, videos: Provided by the character

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