Moss season
For the people of the highlands, moss is not a strange dish. It is actually a vegetable that many people like. Moss often grows on the rocks at the bottom of rivers and large streams.
Mountain people choose moss that grows in places with rapid water currents, looking down to see the green moss surface and pick it. In places with rapid water currents, alluvium and rubbish do not accumulate, so the moss is green and clean.
The green and long mosses, sometimes as long as an arm's length, are picked by people to make into vegetables. We cannot pick rock moss in every season. Rock moss only grows in early autumn until the third lunar month, when the moss season ends.
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Picking moss on Nam Non River - Photo: AV(St) |
To prepare this moss dish is also a bit complicated. You have to choose young moss tips (usually moss at the beginning of the season), wash it, drain it, then chop it and mix it with crushed rice, then season it. Cooking with moss, in addition to the usual spices, cannot lack "mac khen" which has a peppery taste, so some people call it "spicy wild pepper".
In addition, garlic leaves are also very important. "Mac Khen" and garlic leaves combined with the unique flavor of moss create an unforgettable dish of the mountain people. It is also a common scent in the evening meal along with thatched-roof stove smoke mixed with mountain mist in autumn.
Mountain people use rock moss as a special food in dinner along with sticky rice and wild meat. This is also a gift from close neighbors to each other.
Filial families, when they move out, often give their parents packages of cooked moss as a way to show their respect.
Now, back in the mountainous rivers, the sand suction machines on the gold mining grounds have destroyed the eternal peace of the river. Thus, the environment of crabs, fish, humans and mosses are also heavily affected.
Moss is gradually disappearing. The moss environment is polluted and turbid, no longer containing pure minerals, so moss is no longer fresh and delicious. The village is still as peaceful and quiet as a fairy tale in autumn, but only rarely do you see a few people carrying baskets down to the river to pick moss.
Perhaps soon, the moss dish will only be a memory.
You Wei
