Mr. Ho Van Chep (58 years old, living in An Phu district, An Giang) said that in the past, there were countless fish in this area. Every flood season, fish would flood the fields. There were so many fish that they couldn't sell them all, so every family dried them and made fish sauce to save for later consumption.
 |
All kinds of fish sauce are displayed attractively. |
Hoang Vu |
According to this old fisherman, it is not known when the people in the upstream area of An Giang learned to make fish sauce, but the fish sauce making profession has been passed down from generation to generation so as not to miss out on the "heaven-sent" fish resource. Gradually, Chau Doc fish sauce has been increasingly refined by the people to choose the best processing method to have a delicious and characteristic fish sauce flavor.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Diem (50 years old), granddaughter of Ba Giao Khoe - a fish sauce brand for over 100 years in Chau Doc City, said that Chau Doc fish sauce is made from fresh natural fish, along with the hard work of the maker to create the dish. For the fish sauce to have a delicious flavor and color, the sugar used to marinate the fish sauce must be palm sugar, a type of tree that only grows in the southwestern provinces bordering Cambodia; at the same time, the fish sauce must be "bait" with white rice that is roasted until golden brown, then ground to a fragrant and attractive taste. Any type of fish can be used to make fish sauce, but according to the experience of long-time fish sauce makers, only fish with tough flesh can make delicious fish sauce.
In Chau Doc City, there are currently hundreds of households producing fish sauce, but the famous and long-standing brands are Ba Giao Khoe, Ba Tu Au, Ba Giao Mang, Ba Hai Xuyen, Ba Bay Loc, Ba Giao Thao (Hai Tung), Sau Nho, Bay Thay, Ut Canh... Taking advantage of the fact that every year Chau Doc has more than 5 million tourists and pilgrims coming to visit Ba Chua Xu at Sam Mountain National Tourist Area, the establishments have stepped up fish sauce production for both retail, wholesale and export to foreign countries to serve overseas Vietnamese...
Every year, Chau Doc supplies the market with tens of thousands of tons of fish sauce of all kinds. Long-time fish sauce makers all have endless passion and great love for their family's traditional profession.
Mr. Tran Anh Thu, Vice Chairman of An Giang Provincial People's Committee, said: "Chau Doc has a long-standing fish sauce production village and is the capital of fish sauce. Through the fish sauce festival organized by An Giang province, we want to rotate fish sauce festivals in the provinces and cities of the South to have a database to submit to UNESCO for recognition as a world intangible cultural heritage."
There are many types of Chau Doc fish sauce and surely anyone who has ever eaten it will feel that this is a rustic, diverse and colorful dish. Each type of fish sauce has a different way of eating and processing: raw fish sauce, steamed fish sauce, sliced fish sauce mixed with papaya..., but the most popular and famous is the fish sauce hotpot with squid, shrimp, eel, snails, snakehead fish, perch, thinly sliced pork belly, eggplant, served with "countryside" vegetables such as: water lily, sesban flower, squash flower, water spinach, water chives... Eat it once and you will remember it forever.
With a history of formation and development of more than a century, Chau Doc fish sauce craft village has been recognized by the Department of Intellectual Property as a collective brand "Chau Doc fish sauce specialty". In April 2022, on the occasion of the An Giang Provincial People's Committee organizing the Chau Doc Fish Sauce Festival, the Vietnam Record Organization (VietKings) awarded a certificate of recognition "Chau Doc City, An Giang Province - The locality with the most Southern fish sauce production facilities in Vietnam".
Source link
Comment (0)