In Việt Nam when you pass by rice-fields in autumn where the first glutinous paddy grains bend the fresh stem, you will surely smell the fragrance of the young rice ears. Inside the green cover of each rice grain, there is a drop of fragrant white milk. In the sunlight the drop of milk gradually condenses; the rice stem becomes more and more curved due to the greater and greater weight of this precious substance given by nature, as writer Thạch Lam describes.
Many places know how to reap this paddy and process it into cốm, but most famous cốm is that but most famous cốm is that made in Vòng village.
Vòng village is in Từ Liêm district, a few kilometers northwest of
the heart of Ha Noi. It comprises four hamlets namely Vòng Tiền, Vòng Hậu, Vòng Sở and Vòng Trung. Yet only Vòng Hậu and Vòng Sở hamlets are famous with their delicious com.
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| Cốm Vòng (Pounded Young Glutinous Rice) |
When rice is harvested, it is unadvisable to crush or tread on it. The seed should be plucked from the rice ears. The secret of
Com Vong is how to dry the paddy with the frying pan.
Skills and years of experience have led the women of Vòng village to produce high quality cốm using firewood to keep the fire smoldering.
After being fried, the rice grains must not be allowed to cool down. Pounding must also be done carefully, regularly and too heavily. While the pounding is being carried out, cốm must always be turned upside down. After that the cốm flakes are sieved and starched. Finally, they are spread very thinly on lotus leaves.
“Com is not a dish for those who are in a hurry. While eating cốm, people should take it slowly, little and have the time to ponder. Only by doing so, can we enjoy the fragrance of new rice, of wild flowers and grass. One will find, in the green color, the freshness of young leaves, and in the sweetness, the softness and purity of vegetation. Besides, each com flake has the scent of old lotus leaves that seem to keep the warmth of summer days on the lake” (Thạch Lam).
Com can be taken with bananas and preferably with red ripe persimmons. In the past, in the corn season, the future son-in-law usually presents com and persimmons to his parents-in-law.
For over half a century now, the cốm cake has been used as wedding cake. It is square, covered with green banana leaves and bound by red bamboo tape.
The cake itself has the green color of young leaves. In spite of being fried with sugar and fat, the com flakes still keep the fragrance of glutinous rice. The fillings comprise well-kneaded ground green beans and some strands of copra.
