Story by the pot of eggplant

(Baonghean.vn) -Pickled eggplant in particular and pickled and sour foods in general are a typical culinary feature of Nghe An, making people far away from home feel nostalgic and leaving in the hearts of visitors a strong impression of the breath of life of the land of spicy ginger and salty salt.

Praise you for being the son-in-law of Truong Dai/ In a year you eat twelve jars of eggplant/ Where is the well, take me to/ Or I will die with the jar of eggplant in your house.

In this summer weather, a bowl of pickled eggplant or a plate of pickled cucumbers and jackfruit pickles are always present in the family meals of Nghe An people. Pour a bowl of jute soup, pickled vegetables, add a salty and crunchy pickled eggplant - simple, rustic but extremely attractive and delicious!

For a while, housewives joined together to “boycott” this rustic dish because of information such as “eating pickled eggplant causes cancer”, “pickled cucumbers in toxic paint containers”. Actually, the eggplant is not completely innocent, because our grandparents also have a saying “one eggplant, three doses of medicine”, meaning that eggplant is cold and toxic, so you should not eat a lot. But perhaps it is necessary to “clear the name” of pickled eggplant and pickled cucumber because from a scientific perspective, a long pickling time is enough to kill all harmful bacteria, not to mention the sour taste also stimulates digestion and increases appetite. So we can rest assured to enjoy the pleasure of eating pickled eggplant with crab soup or fish soup with pickled cucumber!

There are more people now than in the past, but surprisingly, those who are passionate about this national dish are becoming rarer. People do not pay attention to the simple white eggplants or the delicately sour pickled cucumber slices among the myriad of flashy Western and Chinese foods. The profession of pickling eggplants and pickling cucumbers has also become so secretive that it is invisible and unseen, and few people know where the salty and crunchy taste of the eggplants comes from.

One day, following the woman selling pickled and sour foods at Vinh market to listen to the story of the jars of eggplants, I could feel the salty taste of the crispy eggplants. It is the salty taste of the sweat of the Nghe An woman that the poet Huy Can expressed in a poem as a gentle but passionate justification for the "winding and roughness" of the Nghe An people even in their cuisine:

Oh Nghe An eggplant, the saltier it is, the crispier it is!

Ms. La Phi Nga (Hong Son ward) went to the market to buy vegetables in the morning to pickle.



Select coffee



Mother and child cutting vegetables



Nga's son helps his mother cut eggplant stems.



Jars of eggplant, jars of pickles, jars of pickled vegetables are neatly arranged.



Ms. Nga took pickles for her neighbor to buy.



Prepare goods for the afternoon market



A customer looking to buy at home



Nga and her daughter next to the truck

Hai Trieu