Hanoi connoisseurs: Big houses, cars... eat pork fat sparingly!

Braised pork fat with fish sauce, stir-fried with garlic, stir-fried with pickles, chopped into small pieces to fry with rice - dishes from the subsidy period in Vietnam are now suddenly eagerly "hunted" by the rich people in Hanoi to buy and eat. Many families even have to eat sparingly, counting each piece of pork fat.

The trend of eating 'subsidized' pork rinds

Having just parked her luxurious, shiny white car in front of a clean food store on Lang Ha Street (Dong Da, Hanoi), Ms. Dang Phuong Thao from Dich Vong (Cau Giay, Hanoi) quickly walked inside and asked the sales staff, "Are the pork rinds I ordered last week available?". Immediately after, she laughed happily when she received the answer, "Are your pork rinds available?"

Ms. Thao shared that the pork rinds she ordered were not made from leaf fat but from lard, so they were extremely fragrant, crispy, and not too greasy. This type of pork rinds can be processed into many dishes such as: braised with pickles, stir-fried with pickles, chopped and fried with rice, or more simply, braised with Phu Quoc fish sauce and eaten with white rice, which can also "eat away" several bowls of rice.

Pork fat, a popular dish during the subsidy period, is now bought and eaten by rich people in Hanoi.

The first day, seeing her carrying a bag of pork rinds and a bag of pickles home to cook for dinner, her mother-in-law said,tDuring the subsidy period, pork was rare and we had to wait for ration stamps to buy a few ounces. After buying it, we would cut it into categories, the lean meat would be used to make pork floss for the children to eat gradually, the fat would be fried and used to cook later. The pork rinds would also be stored for later consumption.

Her mother-in-law also said that at that time, life was very hard, there was not enough rice to eat, sometimes rice had to be mixed with bananas or cassava, so a meal with a few pieces of pork rinds was as precious and luxurious as today when people can eat sturgeon eggs.

Since then, her family members have enjoyed eating pork rinds. Every day there is pork rinds, they buy rice. However, Ms. Thao added that it is not easy to find pork rinds in Hanoi now, she always has to order them a week in advance. When she can buy them, she has to eat sparingly because she is afraid they will run out, and when she craves them, she cannot buy them right away.

“So nowadays, pork rinds are as precious and rare as they were during the subsidy period that my mother-in-law mentioned,” she said.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Loan in Minh Khai (Hai Ba Trung, Hanoi) also shared that twice a month she orders pork rinds to eat, 2kg each time.

She said that when she was a child in the countryside, her family's life was difficult and hard. Her parents did not have money to buy meat for their children to eat, they only had money to buy fat to fry and use to cook other dishes. The fat was kept separately to braise in fish sauce or sauce with tomatoes to eat gradually. When she grew up, her family had better conditions and a better life, instead of using fat, her family switched to eating oil because it was more convenient, so the fat was just a thing of the past.

“Nowadays, it is difficult to buy pork fat. I have to order it from butchers in the countryside,” said Loan. Pigs in the countryside are raised on corn bran and cassava, which people cook themselves, so there is a lot of fat. Filtering that fat out and frying it into pork fat makes it delicious and clean.

“I didn’t have time to order it the other day, but we still had some at home. While cooking, my husband counted the pieces and divided the pork fat into two parts: one part to stir-fry with pickles for dinner, and the other part to chop and stir-fry with rice for breakfast,” said Loan.

Currently, pork rinds are priced nearly twice as high as pork in the market, but many people still order them.

Almost twice as expensive as meat, still competing to buy

Talking to reporters, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Trung, owner of a clean food store in Cau Giay (Hanoi), said that Hanoians are following the trend of eating pork fat even though it costs 150,000 VND/kg, almost twice as expensive as pork.

Nearly half a year ago, he started selling pork from his hometown. He found that the pork had a lot of fat, so he asked the workers to filter out some of that fat to fry and sell separately. At that time, many people asked to buy the pork fat as well. So he asked his contacts to buy pork fat from his hometown and fry the pork fat to sell to customers in Hanoi.

Mr. Trung shared that this type of pork fat is not the fat peeled off from the part that sticks to the pig's internal organs (leaf fat) but is the fat from the pig's butt, shoulder, and neck that is filtered separately, chopped, and then fried. Of course, this type of pork fat is guaranteed to be clean.

The pork rinds are crispy, not too greasy, and fragrant. When eaten with a piece of pork rinds, it is sometimes a bit chewy and makes a delicious snack, he said.

However, to make the pork crackling fragrant, delicious, and slightly golden when fried, it must be prepared very carefully. For example, cut the fat into small pieces, wash it, then put it in a pot of boiling water. When the fat is cooked, pour it into a basin and wash it again. At this point, the pork smell is gone. Let the fat drain completely before frying. This way, the fat will be delicious, the fat water will also be clean and pure white.

According to Mr. Trung, there are many customers but a pig that is filtered to get the fatty and lean parts only weighs 3-4 kg, so pork rinds are quite rare. Usually, his customers have to order 5-7 days in advance.

According to Vietnamnet.vn