“Anh đi anh nhớ quê nhà. Nhớ canh rau muống, nhớ cà dầm tương”
Every Vietnamese, especially those from the north, know these well-known poetry lines by heart. They mean, “Missing my hometown, missing water morning glory soup and missing eggplant soaked in soya bean sauce.”
For several northerners, rau muong seems to be indispensible in their daily meal. Maybe that is the reason southerners call people from the north “Dan rau muong” (Rau muong residents).
When I was a student, water morning glory was part of my daily meal as the vegetable is inexpensive and can be cooked in many different delicious ways. We can have water morning glory fried with garlic and sometimes cooked with mussel to make a delicious soup.
The most popular way to cook water morning glory is to boil it. We usually boil the vegetable then strain it. The water morning glory is eaten by dipping it into a delicious fish sauce flavored with chilly and garlic cut into small pieces with drops of lemon.
The stock water residue left in the pot can also be made into a special soup by adding a little salt, glutamate and some lemon. This soup makes a good lunch dish that can be cooling and appetizing on a scorching summer day.
My hometown is in the central province of Quang Ngai. I remember my mother cultivating water morning glory on a small field. This vegetable has a special vitality about it.
My family always grew water morning glory for use in our daily meals. We thus did not use any pesticide on the water morning glory patch, being afraid that it would affect our health.
Within one month of sowing, we could harvest the vegetable, which continued to grow from the cut stems of the vegetable. I can still feel the sweet and crispy taste of the vegetable every time I think of it.
We had rau muong every day in meals and my sister sold the surplus in a market close to my house. The vegetable sold out immediately with each bundle selling for about VND1,000 at that time.
Now, whenever I get the time I usually visit my home to have some rau muong grown by my mother.
While in Ho Chi Minh City, I do not have much rau muong as it does not have the same delicious flavor as the one grown in my hometown.
