White fragrant Quy Chinh vermicelli

(Baonghean) - The owner of a vermicelli factory in Quy Chinh vermicelli and cake craft village (Van Dien commune, Nam Dan district) looked at me with a twinkle and affirmed firmly: The products in our craft village are the "best", because we only turn rice into delicious vermicelli or vermicelli thanks to our skilled hands and the warm sunshine of the countryside, without adding any "seasoning" to anything...

Having been in confinement, the vermicelli makers in the Quy Chinh vermicelli and cake village have to anxiously wait for the weather forecast every day. It's autumn, and as soon as the harvest season ends, the time to sit back and watch the rain and wind change seasons begins. The vermicelli makers turn off the electric switches of the flour mills and rolling machines, waiting for the first sunny day to quickly sweep, grind rice into flour, press, steam, and roll out new batches of vermicelli to dry. If the weather suddenly turns gloomy and it rains, they will bring the vermicelli into the house and use high-powered fans to dry them... That will be the most difficult season for the vermicelli making profession.

A corner of Quy Chinh craft village (Van Dien, Nam Dan).

The Quy Chinh vermicelli and cake village originated from the rice paper making business. Mrs. Ky, who is over a hundred years old this year, was originally from Ha Tinh and married into Quy Chinh village when the village did not have a concise name like it does now, but was still called by the name of Cau Don on National Highway 30. Her memory is hazy and vague, so she cannot remember much, but according to the villagers, she followed her husband to Quy Chinh around 1930 with a dowry of a copper pot and rice paper making skills, igniting the rice paper making business here. Gradually, the villagers added the business of making vermicelli, rice paper, and now, glass noodles. Thus, Mrs. Ky is the "ancestor" of the village!

Quy Chinh vermicelli and rice noodle village was recognized by the province in 2005. Up to now, there are 200 households out of 310 households making vermicelli, rice noodles, and rice vermicelli in two administrative units, Quy Chinh 1 and Quy Chinh 2 hamlets, located on a gently sloping sandbank between four sides of rice fields. The villagers are all Catholics. The village is also famous for its traditional medicine, and a few families have become rich thanks to this profession, but the most bustling and stable livelihood for the majority of the villagers is the vermicelli and rice noodle making. Mr. Nguyen Van Hoai, the head of Quy Chinh 1 hamlet, was assigned the role of village head, and is currently busy building a big house for his youngest son. When asked if the family's main source of income is from making vermicelli and rice noodles? He smiled, neither nodding nor shaking his head, but looking at the dozens of plump rice bags stacked in the corner of the yard, he was sure. It's not that he's shy about making his profession or income public, but he wants us to walk around the village, see the atmosphere of the craft village and visit households that have invested hundreds of millions to buy machines to "industrialize" this profession that has been done manually for decades.

In Quy Chinh, there are many families whose children work abroad, so the pace of house construction is strong. The village roads have also been concreted and decorated. But it is worth mentioning that the noodle making village is often complained about environmental pollution, but in Quy Chinh, people have built their own drainage culverts with tight covers, some households collect wastewater for livestock farming, so the smell is not as strong as in many other noodle making villages. Village leader Nguyen Van Hoai said that many provincial and district functional delegations have come to inspect and encourage the responsibility of maintaining environmental hygiene of the craftsmen. When the village was recognized as a craft village, the province awarded 30 million VND, the district 12 million VND and later the commune invested in building a nearly 300 meter asphalt road into the village... That's all, I heard that other craft villages have received billions of VND in support from the province to invest in building infrastructure items, now Quy Chinh has a road, I just hope to be supported to build a common drainage canal!

Today is sunny, in the yards and alleys of Quy Chinh village, the vermicelli drying racks are bustling. The whole village has about 20 investors in processing machines, each machine costs from 25 to 30 million VND depending on the type. Households without machines just bring rice, rent the vermicelli to roll, then bring it home to dry and then sell it to the market or to regular customers. At peak times, such as near Tet, for example, the village has people collecting it and loading it into trucks to sell in the North and South. Customers are stable, so we only do it in quantity. Both hamlets have hundreds of hectares of rice fields, so we still value farming and the craft village, but it is still a side job when the farming is idle. The owner of the vermicelli machine, Dinh Van Doai (Quy Chinh hamlet 2), "runs" 5 to 7 quintals of rice a day, both from his family and from people who come to rent him to press and roll, and also earns a monthly profit of up to tens of millions of VND, the waste is used to feed 10 rice-eating crabs, which are produced 3 times a year.

He said: “If I don’t keep this profession, what will I do? Well, my wife and I have been doing this for 30 years, still raising our children, saving enough to build a house with solid roof and roof.” He enthusiastically recounted the time when he used a ruler and knife to cut the vermicelli noodles, making only a few kilos a day, but it gradually supported the profession. When there was a hand-cranked machine to roll the noodles, then a belt-driven generator attached to that hand-cranked shaft... until now, the electric milling, steaming and rolling system, the vermicelli profession has gone from simply making a living to creating a passion for the profession. After affirming that his vermicelli is of the “best” quality in Nghe An, he analyzed the “secret”: “Our Quy Chinh vermicelli is only made from Khang Dan rice, the rice grains are firm when cooked; the rice is ground, pressed into powder, then steamed and rolled, not pounded dry powder and then mixed with water to roll like other places, so the vermicelli noodles are firm and chewy, and the broth remains clear after a bowl of vermicelli is cooked all day.

In other places, dipping vermicelli in the water immediately makes the broth cloudy and thick, and the vermicelli gradually becomes crumbly. Vermicelli is a product that can be stored for a long time and transported and consumed everywhere, so the name of the hometown has followed it, creating pride for the people of Quy Chinh village. That's why even the family of Mr. Nguyen Van Tuan (Quy Chinh 2), who traveled abroad to work from Korea to England, built a big and beautiful house worth billions of dong, and kept billions of dong in cash, saying that they could buy a car whenever they wanted; but the couple still meticulously do their job, hiring rollers and then drying only a few dozen or thirty kilos of vermicelli a day, the wife drying it and the husband carrying a motorbike to go around selling it, as if it were a practical hobby.

Processing vermicelli in Quy Chinh craft village.

The most expensive machinery investment in the craft village is the vermicelli and banh muot processing machine, each machine costs 70 million VND. The whole village has 7 such machines. Mrs. Duong Thi Hien in Quy Chinh 1 - one of the 4 owners of vermicelli processing machines in the craft village, further affirmed that the process of steaming vermicelli with a wood-fired oven in her house is superior to steaming with electricity, the vermicelli is cooked evenly and processed faster, so the vermicelli is more delicious. No wonder the alley, yard and even the corner of her warehouse are piled with firewood. Making vermicelli as well as making banh muot, to be served immediately, so they start in the late afternoon to prepare the dough, then steam and cut the finished product at night, in time for the shops and markets to pick it up in the morning. Processing vermicelli and banh muot requires hiring workers, like Mrs. Hien's family has to hire 3 people, but a day can only make about a hundred kilos of rice, producing about a hundred kilos of vermicelli. Her daughter got married and moved to the same village, bought 2 rice cake making machines, hired 7 workers, and paid 2.5 - 3 million VND/person/month.

Mastering a vermicelli or rice cake processing machine, without having to go abroad to work, can still be quite well-off. That is, working regularly in the spring and autumn regardless of the weather. Quy Chinh village's vermicelli and rice cake have long been famous for the "brand" of Nam Dan vermicelli and rice cake, easily comparable in uniqueness to Cau Don goat, Nam Nghia tamarind or Sa Nam tamarind sauce! Quy Chinh rice cake has regular rice cake and rolled rice cake, and vermicelli also has regular rice cake and leaf rice cake. Only by watching Quy Chinh women's hands roll rice cake and spread rice cake leaves can one feel the poetic charm of a craft village. The rice cake is smooth and thin, glistening, cut horizontally and vertically into neat pieces, then the hands dance to fold and roll hundreds of them like a row of silkworms. For rice vermicelli, just bend two fingers to pinch the noodles, shake your wrist a few times and the rice vermicelli leaves will be round and soft. Showing the bowl of dipping sauce next to it makes you want to pick it up and dip it in to eat right away... The village has few people making rice paper, but there are two types of rice paper. That is grilled rice paper and rice paper for peanut candy. Making rice paper a lot every day only makes 4 kilos of rice, but each has their own profession and customers come regularly.

I asked Quy Chinh craft village products, especially vermicelli, are of such good quality, why don’t they use packaging as a brand? Mr. Doai said that there is no need to, because if you put all your heart and soul into making delicious food, people will like it and buy it. Bunches of vermicelli are as small as bundles of rice seedlings, just pack them and ship them to the market, you will never run out of work! Mr. Hoai nodded, saying that he had never thought about it before, but Quy Chinh vermicelli was also proud to participate in the provincial craft village exhibition in 2009, with several booths, and the sign “Quy Chinh Vermicelli” was filled with buyers, which was strangely enjoyable. But the matter of attaching an industrial design label, we can only rely on the above! And when there is an industrial design label, we also have to reorganize the management of craft village activities, people place orders with contracts but the production is always dirty, so they are heavily fined, not a joke. Well, that is still a long way off, but leaving the village to the intersection where the famous goat restaurant Trinh Cau Don brand is located on Highway 30, I was hesitant because I only saw "mesmerizing" sales of soy sauce, jackfruit, but I couldn't see Quy Chinh rice paper or vermicelli anywhere. Well, for now, let's just be happy for the spirit of preserving the profession of the Quy Chinh vermicelli and rice noodle village people, who knows, maybe tomorrow when tourists come to Nam Dan, buy a jar of soy sauce, they will definitely have to visit the village to buy a bunch of Quy Chinh vermicelli as a gift...

Sam Temple