My hometown has a funny story that many people know. A high-ranking leader visited and asked, “What are the outstanding specialties of Nghe An ?”, the local leader humorously replied: “Reporting, there are two famous specialties far and wide: football and eel porridge!”.

Yes, coming to Nghe An or talking about Nghe An in recent years, without talking about football or eel porridge/eel porridge is like... not having been, or not knowing about this hot and windy land of Laos. This small article is dedicated to the story of catching, processing and making Nghe An eel porridge/soup along with the "echo" of the specialty that many people have known, enjoyed once and then hope to have the next time, the next time...

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Eel soup featured in a video on CNN's Great Big Story

First of all, the eel is native to most rural areas here and there. In Nghe An, the low-lying rice fields/rice granary of Yen Thanh is the “capital of eels” because the deep-lying fields here are very suitable for the reproduction and development of eels as well as many other freshwater fish species.

A colleague of ours in Nghe An, who is a reporter covering agriculture and is familiar with all the roads, numbers, and indexes in the rice district, once "bragged" that in Yen Thanh, every 200mm of rain would flood at least 400/12,500ha of rice area.

To see, this place is a low-lying area, a water-bearing area, with many disadvantages for production and life, but also has countless advantages, if we know how to control and exploit nature. The story of the eel in Yen Thanh specifically speaks to that.

After many years of struggling, exploring and learning, Yen Thanh people have created 3 popular ways to catch eels, which are definitely not the "draining and digging mud to catch all the eels" method which is very laborious and ineffective like in many places. That is the unique trick of finding "the" eels along the banks of rice fields and ponds, then skillfully finding and grabbing the eel's head and quickly putting it in the basket.

That is to catch eels with bait like fishing, flicking water to call eels or placing bait right in front of the “ma” and waiting for the eel to eat the bait, then jerking it quickly like catching a fish. The third most popular way is to set a trap with bait every night, and collect the trap in the morning…

According to the experience of many eel “experts”, the beginning of February and the beginning of July every year is the breeding and development season of the eel. At that time, the eel comes to shore to find a hole to lay eggs and hatch. The time when the eel is fattest is the end of March, the beginning of April, or the end of August to September, when the spring rice or summer-autumn rice plants flower and form ears.

The story worth mentioning is that in Yen Thanh for a long time, the profession of catching eels, processing and consuming the products has been a hot job for farmers, especially in the "capital" Long Thanh. People have known how to buy eels in the village, in the commune, then spread to other communes, districts, know how to process and consume the products for all needs inside and outside the province, including export.

In Long Thanh, at first only a few households were engaged in the business of purchasing eels in Nam Son hamlet, now more households in Bac Son, Dong Son and Phan Thanh hamlets have joined in, bringing the number of eel workers to 300 people with an average income of 4-5 million VND/month. It is estimated that Long Thanh alone processes and consumes up to 1,000 tons of finished eels each year.

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Delicious and nutritious eel soup is famous in Nghe An.

If Yen Thanh is the famous “capital of eel”, Vinh City is the “capital of eel porridge/eel porridge” attracting a large number of diners from inside and outside the province. Not only tourists from near and far, but also Nghe An people far from home, every time they return to their hometown, to Vinh, it is very difficult to ignore the “eel porridge” dish (lots of eel, little porridge) at Ba Lan restaurant, Cua Nam ward, from Vinh to Nam Dan, Ba Vo restaurant in “eel porridge street” Ho Sy Duong, Hung Binh ward or Ba Ngo restaurant also in Hung Binh ward…

These simple shops, without any advertising, are bustling with customers every morning and every afternoon. Enjoy it once and you will remember it forever, wanting to come back. Not to mention, recently there is a takeaway service, sending it far away, as long as customers have a need.

Then not only in Vinh but also in many provinces and cities, the restaurant "Nghe An eel" opened. In Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, if you want to have eel porridge or Nghe An eel soup, just make a phone call and the restaurant will deliver it to your door, the quality is genuine and impeccable.

Recently, some people in Nghe An have also processed instant dishes from eel, which are not only available on domestic supermarket shelves but also exported to Australia, England, Korea, Japan, etc. That is the attraction and spread of a dish that is not only delicious but also a precious medicine.

According to Oriental medicine, eel has a sweet taste, has the effect of nourishing blood and qi, warming yang, benefiting the spleen, nourishing the liver and kidneys, strengthening tendons and bones, eliminating rheumatism, clearing meridians... and is used to treat fatigue, coughs, diabetes, aching tendons and bones, and body weakness.

Yen Thanh eel, processed by Vinh restaurant into eel porridge, eel soup with bread, wet rice paper rolls..., was once known by the Great Big Story company of CNN television station in the faraway United States and ranked among the 7 unique breakfast dishes in the world, comparable to Kenya's Mandazi sweet bread, Turkey's Kuymax (made from cream and yellow corn flour), American catfish with corn soup, India's Patra cake, Lebanon's Za'aTar cake, Myanmar's Mohinga fish noodle dish...

So, without spending billions on advertising, it was still broadcast for 1 minute and 48 seconds on CNN through a character's experience program, nor had the honor of being visited by foreign leaders to become more famous far and wide like Obama's bun cha in Hanoi, but surely Nghe An's eel specialty still "hurts the nose" of diners, has an unusual attraction thanks to its special rustic flavor and unique charm.

Indeed, Nghe An eel dish is not just a funny story somewhere but is a "strong brand" of a delicious, nutritious dish, famous domestically and gradually spreading to... the world.

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