Pickled vegetables and fish sauce are the salty taste of mother's love.

Pickled vegetables and fish sauce are full of mother's love. Photo: Ngoc Nu

When they arrived in the new land, my parents didn’t have much money, only hard work and determination to build a new life. Almost every meal in those days consisted of fish sauce, pickles, and eggplant.

During the dry season, my mother would display baskets of melons, eggplants, and papayas in the backyard, then wash them, drain them, and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Once finished, she would put them in a basket and shake them until they were dry. My mother said that no matter what the ingredients were, the more carefully they were prepared, the longer they would last when mixed with fish sauce. After saying that, my mother spread the drained vegetables out on a bamboo basket to dry in the sun.

The pickles were dried until they were just wilted enough to absorb the fish sauce flavor. The jars were sealed tightly and used within five to seven days. When they were empty, my mother would make a new batch.

I still remember the image of my parents’ bicycle with two jars of pickled vegetables hanging on it every time they went to the fields. On the red dirt road, the laughter of my grandparents mixed with the sound of the highland wind.

During the rainy months, the landscape around the house was covered in a cold gray. The cold seeped through the walls of the shed, into the kitchen, and caused the papaya tree in the backyard to drop many fruits. Mom picked the papayas and processed them as usual.

I hurriedly scraped out the melon seeds, peeled the garlic, crushed the chili, or got out the sugar jar and fish sauce jar. It had been raining all day, the fields were muddy, and work in the fields had come to a halt.

During those chilly days, my mother’s pickled cucumber and fish sauce was even more precious. It was the dish that helped my family survive the pouring rain. Just a bowl of hot rice with pickled cucumber and fish sauce was enough to warm our hearts.

Every time she made fish sauce, my mother told me about her hometown Quang Nam , where my grandparents lived. Gifts from home like a can of fish sauce, a melon, or a can of malt were extremely precious to my parents.

There weren’t many vehicles at that time, and traveling between the Central Highlands and Quang Nam wasn’t easy. Every time we received gifts from our hometown, the whole family was both happy and moved. Hometown food helped the children living far away to ease their nostalgia for their homeland.

Time passed, and it was also the time when I left the small house in the Central Highlands to pursue my dreams. Every time I returned home, smelling the fish sauce and pickled vegetables, I felt indescribable emotions. It was not only the food, but also the memories. They made me grateful for the difficult days, taught me how to save and appreciate what I had.

Watching my mother making fish sauce, I see the image of the past. Memories of the hot sunny seasons, the endless rains, my parents’ hard work and the jars of fish sauce hanging on the old bicycle, are still intact.

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/mam-dua-ca-man-ma-tinh-me-3146396.html