Cold wind makes me miss braised canarium fruit

Winter has entered the North. The biting cold reminds us of the rich, rustic dishes made from Chinese jujube.

Canarium trees are distributed in many mountainous areas in the Northeast of our country, such as Cao Bang, Bac Kan , Lang Son, Tuyen Quang provinces... In late autumn and early winter, canarium forests begin to ripen, ethnic people begin to pick black and green canarium to bring to the market to sell.

In the past, at the market days in the plains of my hometown, fresh canarium fruit were sold everywhere. When I was a child, I would always go to the canarium section when I followed my mother to the market. My mother often bought a couple of kilos of green canarium fruit to stew with crucian carp or braise with pork belly for the whole family to eat gradually over the next five to seven days. Canarium fruit has a characteristic sour and astringent taste, but when we children got hold of it, we would gnaw on a piece, then grimace and stick out our tongues...

To make delicious dishes from canarium fruit is really a lot of work. If the canarium fruit is whole, it must be processed by splitting it in half and removing the sharp diamond-shaped seeds. Then soak the canarium and wash it in diluted salt water. We must continue to boil the canarium in 2-3 batches of boiling water and then pour away the water to soften the canarium and reduce the astringency.

The soft, dark yellow pieces of canarium still retain their sour taste. Now, they are just waiting to be combined with pork belly or crucian carp and spices such as galangal, ginger, and fermented rice to create a delicious dish. The sour taste of canarium mixed with the fatty taste of the pork belly or the fishy smell of the fish will make diners remember it forever.

Braised canarium fruit goes well with rice. There is nothing more suitable than eating it in the cold winter weather. Parents often give in and remind their children to eat more meat and fish to grow up quickly. But every time, the braised canarium pieces are always gone, leaving only meat and fish...

Later, when I had the opportunity to go to some mountainous provinces in the Northeast, wandering around the market, I had the opportunity to enjoy black sticky rice with canarium fruit. Previously, the Tay and Nung ethnic people in the highlands often made black sticky rice with canarium fruit to eat on the occasion of weddings, housewarmings, death anniversaries... But now they make this dish to sell to serve tourists from near and far.

The best quality sticky rice grains are chosen to cook sticky rice with canarium fruit. The white color of sticky rice mixed with the black and purple color of canarium fruit creates a very unique and attractive sticky rice dish. Before eating, just sitting near the sticky rice dish with canarium fruit, we can smell the aroma. Sticky rice with canarium fruit has a rich, fatty taste but does not get boring quickly like other types of sticky rice.

Nowadays, in the city, it is rare to have a delicious meal of stewed canarium fruit like in the past. The northeast monsoon winds blowing down make us remember the warm family meals, the scene of sisters arguing over the last piece of stewed canarium fruit on the plate...