Rustic cassava soup with betel leaves

In my early 40s, I was moved to tears when I tasted the sweet flavor of my childhood in a pot of cassava and betel leaf soup.

Traditional cassava and betel leaf soup. Photo: Hong Sanh

The aroma of de-compressed peanut oil mixed with the scent of piper lolot leaves in the chilly air of Tra My mountain region is extremely appealing to the taste buds. I carefully tasted each spoonful of soup with the hope of rediscovering the old taste. The sweet taste of cassava mixed with the sweet taste of piper lolot leaves brought me back to my peaceful childhood in the poor countryside.

There, after school every afternoon, I would run to the fence to pick young green betel leaves for my mother to cook cassava soup. There, after returning from the field, my father would go to the garden to pull out an old cassava root laden with tubers. There, I would sit there, watching my mother peel each cassava skin and kindly ask me about my studies that day.

When I grew up a little, I peeled the cassava myself, meticulously leaving the skin intact and showing it to my mother with a sparkling smile in my eyes. There, I often quietly watched my mother peel each shallot that my grandmother sent from the sea. Then, she added a little peanut oil to sauté, put the cut cassava in to stew, poured boiling water over it and cooked until the cassava was soft. When the cassava was soft, she added the betel leaves and took it off the stove.

The aroma of the rustic soup, filled with my mother’s love, lingered throughout the small kitchen. In the chilly air of the highlands, my parents and siblings gathered around the simple meal, happily inhaling the hot bowl of cassava soup and eating deliciously.

No meat, no shrimp, no spices, compressed cassava soup with betel leaves is a dish that you will remember forever after trying it once. The delicious, sweet flavor of mountain cassava is enough to captivate everyone.

We grew up in a time of famine and hardship. But for me, every moment of the past is a sweet and beautiful memory. It was the rustic dishes that my parents cooked that raised my siblings and I...

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/dan-da-canh-khoai-san-la-lot-3149768.html