Far away when rice is cold

Cold rice, everyone knows. But there is one thing that many people get confused about: Not all rice that is no longer hot is cold rice! Cold rice is not rice cooked in the morning and eaten at noon, or cooked in the afternoon and eaten at night, but cold rice is rice left overnight, cooked today and eaten tomorrow, or rice cooked in the afternoon and left until late at night, meaning overnight, that is the real cold rice I am talking about here!

Cook extra to eat tomorrow, not that they are lazy to cook tomorrow, but only when eating cold rice can one feel the flavor of… cold rice! Therefore, many people cook rice and wait until it is completely cold before eating. Cold rice, cut into a piece, use chopsticks or pick it up with your hands, eat with anything, just chew it thoroughly to feel the flavor of cold rice!

In the countryside in the past decades, you could have anything in the house, but you could never have a lack of… cold rice. Cold rice is not a luxury, but waking up in the morning without eating cold rice is like being addicted to coffee in the morning but not being able to drink it!

Fifty or seventy years ago, there was something that every family in the countryside, no matter how rich or poor, had to have: cold rice. Every morning, children, and sometimes adults, would rummage through cold rice to eat before going to the fields, the sea, the forest, herding buffalo, going to school... A bowl of cold rice, usually eaten with a dried fish (usually dried fish, paper brain, red stomach, paralysis... that fishermen often kept just to eat cold rice) or a piece of powdered sugar, knowing that it was not as nutritious as a bowl of pho, hu tieu or a meat sandwich, but it certainly filled the stomach, because if the stomach was not full, how could one work hard all morning? (a dog-boy can eat a whole pot of cold rice like a game!).

In the old days (because it has existed for a long time), eating cold rice every morning (now breakfast, dim sum) is, if not an exaggeration, a traditional culinary feature, which the majority of Vietnamese people in the past were mainly farmers and considered as the staple food passed down from father to son. Now that society is civilized, people have modernized even in eating and sleeping, cold rice is only a… legend!

“… My dear, why should I help you?

I am cold rice to satisfy hunger...

In addition to their role as wives and mothers, women also hold the key to the family. Yet in this life, there are times when women have to endure misfortunes and disadvantages. “My dear…” that folk song sounds so sad, mixed with a bit of cruelty. I am just cold rice, and only when you are hungry will you think of me, but when you are full… that’s it! “My dear…” is like begging, pleading, giving in… if anything happens, I will take it all, even if I am a humble grain of cold rice, just hoping that you will not betray me. Only then do we know that cold rice, even though it is just… cold rice, in this situation and when hungry, becomes a priceless dish!

I remember the days of staying up late to study, being hungry, going down to the kitchen, looking for cold rice, taking the trouble to light a fire, putting a little fat in the pan, squeezing the cold rice apart, then frying it until golden brown and sprinkling a little salt… it was that simple, I dare anyone to not drool when they saw it! If the cold rice was fried with shortening (the kind of fat stored in American tins, if you don’t eat it at night, you’ll miss it!).

Does anyone still eat cold rice these days? In life, there are things that we regret when they are lost, but sometimes we are criticized when we keep them. For example, waking up in the morning and eating cold rice for breakfast makes us feel poor, and is it because we are poor that we eat cold rice?

Cold rice must be cooked on a charcoal stove to be delicious, so it is still cold rice, but cold rice in the past is different from cold rice today, in the time of gas stoves and electric ovens.

Recalling eating cold rice from a long time ago... some people say that at that time, being hungry, having cold rice to eat was lucky, but how could cold rice be delicious? Wrong, in the past, not only the poor ate cold rice, but even the rich did. Now, if you don't believe me, one day you try eating cold rice with dried fish (grilled over charcoal) or a lump of crushed sugar (the kind of sugar in the sugar mills in the countryside is only handmade, (using a buffalo to pull a rotating shaft to force the sugar cane to release its juice, flowing into a pan to cook into sugar) and yet it is fragrant, sweet, has a very distinctive taste, a type of clean sugar that is guaranteed to be addictive after just one bite! Just kidding to ease your cravings, but nowadays, there is no such thing as crushed sugar) or eating it with anchovy fish sauce, mixed with pickles... then crushed with chili, you will see... a pot of cold rice is clean! So people have a reason when they remind someone who has to leave home:

"When I'm far away, I miss my hometown.

Miss the cold rice with eggplant dipped in soy sauce…”.

Nowadays in rural areas, whether urbanized or not, does anyone still eat cold rice? Today’s culinary life has many delicious and strange dishes. People no longer die from war but die for food (not fighting over food)… but there is too much poison in food!

Eating cold rice, a culinary feature "rich in national identity" of rural areas has existed for many generations. Unfortunately, today, material life has caused the loss of a long-standing habit...

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