Remember the bean candy poured on the banana leaf

Mom looked at the bright eyes waiting and nodded slightly. Just waiting for that, we ran to scoop up peanuts and peel them quickly. Mom opened the cupboard and took out some brown sugar to save for when we suddenly craved sweets or candy.

Everywhere in my hometown, I see green peanut and corn fields. When I was a child, I often followed my parents to plant beans. My father went first to dig holes, while my mother and I followed behind to drop two beans into the soil and then cover them up.

Joy arises from the moment I see tiny bean sprouts emerging from the ground. I ride my bike to school across the fields, peacefully watching the green beans dotted with yellow flowers covering the land of my homeland.

I still remember the eyes of my parents twinkling with joy as they bent down to pull up the hanging bean bushes. My mother held the plump beans with her dirty hands. My brothers and I helped her pull the beans, occasionally picking some young beans from the stream, washing them and putting them in our mouths to chew. Then we eagerly waited until evening when my mother brought the pot of fresh peanuts to cook.

The summer sun dried several baskets of beans in the yard. Mom packed them into bags to be pressed for oil, and stored the remaining dried beans in the corner of the house to eat as snacks.

The peanut plant is truly amazing, from root to tip nothing is wasted. The peanut cakes (the residue left after pressing) are left in the corner of the kitchen. Every night when cooking pig feed, Mom breaks off a few pieces and puts them into the boiling pot of feed. Then Mom praises the pigs in the pen for growing so fast these days!

Anyone back home must have been excited by the smell of roasted peanuts from Mom on the stove. As soon as Mom told her to put them down, she would reach out and pick a few and put them in her mouth, not waiting for the moment when the crispy and fragrant peanuts were sprinkled on top of a hot bowl of Quang noodles.

If Quang noodles sprinkled with peanuts makes people excited, peanut candy on rainy nights makes people excited twice. When Mom caramelized sugar on the stove, when the roasted peanuts had just blown off their silk skin, our mouths were already watering!

The sugar used to make the candy had to be real country sugar. Of course, the sugar was Mom’s fault because we didn’t know how to control the fire, didn’t know when the sugar was “right”. The sugar melted and boiled on the stove, Mom quickly poured in the roasted peanuts, then poured them on top of the golden-brown rice paper.

My family rarely had rice paper available because our candy cravings often came suddenly, so my mother asked me to go to the garden to cut the banana stalks. I chose the biggest banana stalk in the garden, peeled off the outer stalks to cut the white inner stalks.

The bean candy poured on the banana leaf was the most delicious food in the world for us at that time. When the candy cooled, Mom used a knife to cut the candy and divided it among us. But sometimes no one wanted to wait until the candy cooled. The still-warm piece of candy was already in our mouths.

The initial excitement passed, I carefully held the crispy and fragrant candy in the banana leaf, eating it slowly, afraid of running out. With just a gentle pull of my hand, the candy came off the banana leaf as easily as peeling a cake.

That sweetness followed me until I became a wanderer. When it suddenly rained outside, when I suddenly tasted the bitterness of life, that sweetness would rekindle and comfort me.

My friend in the countryside bragged about pouring peanut candy for the kids to eat. Peanut candy now has many variations, sprinkled with dried coconut, roasted sesame, fragrant sliced kumquat peel… Seeing the kids eagerly holding the peanut candy in their hands, I felt like I was a kid again.

On rainy evenings outside the banana garden, I would beg my mother, "Mom, give me peanut candy!"

Source: https://baodanang.vn/nho-keo-dau-do-tren-be-chuoi-3297339.html