HA TINH – Palm fruit for harvest from December onwards, selling 20,000-30,000 VND per kg, processed into many dishes such as salted palm, palm sticky rice, braised palm…
On the afternoon of December 6, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Khiem, a resident of Son Tien commune, Huong Son district, and her two children carried a bamboo ladder to the garden, leaning on a palm tree to climb up and pick fruit. This is the annual seasonal job of Mrs. Khiem’s family every winter.
Mrs. Khiem’s family grows 5 palm trees, each tree gives 20-30 kg of fruit in the season. With trees about 2m low, she can stand on the ground with her hands or use a pole with a sickle to pick fruit. Trees taller than 5 m need two people to work together, one person standing above picking, the lower one using a basket to collect.
The palm trunk has many protruding branches, so it is difficult to find a balance when placing a ladder to climb up. Therefore, the person standing below, in addition to picking up the fruit, must also pay attention to keeping the ladder tightly so that the person above is not in danger.
Palm trees are grown in home gardens in the midland and mountainous areas of Ha Tinh such as Huong Son, Huong Khe, Vu Quang, Duc Tho… The tree is 6-10 m tall, has thorns, and mistletoe grows a lot. About ten years ago, people planted palm trees to sell leaves, or cut leaves for roofing, making handicrafts. Today, the use of leaves is less and less, many families still keep the tree for shade and sell the fruit.
There are many types of palm such as prickly palm, glutinous palm, fat palm… The most widely grown varieties are fat palm and glutinous palm, the fruit is dark yellow, flexible, and has a greasy taste. The tree is about 30 years old, then it will rot and die. Every March, the tree flowers and bears fruit, in early December, begins to ripen, the fruit is as big as an adult’s thumb. From this point on, people start to harvest.
Ms. Tran Thi Lan, a resident of Son Bang commune, said that it takes 6 years for a palm tree to produce good fruit. The best fruit must be picked from trees that have never had their leaves cut. Because the tree is cut many times, the fruit will be stunted, the seeds are large, the taste is acrid, and the characteristic smell is lost.
When picking the fruit, people will put it in a bamboo basket, then wear gloves, and then rub it vigorously to clean the dark green outer shell. In order for the fruit to peel off quickly, many people also put a little rice husk in the basket to rub, water continuously to wash it. One kilogram of fruit takes about 10-15 minutes to prepare.
The cleaned fruit is put in a pot of 70 degrees hot water to braise. Water must be kept at this temperature until the fruit is ripe and yellow, fragrant, and fatty. If it is too cold or too hot, the palm will be mushy, acrid, unable to eat. Once braised for 10-15 minutes.
Palms are harvested from December to mid-January, every day people pick about 10-20 kg to bring to the market or put in large baskets on provincial, inter-district, and inter-commune roads for sale. Unprocessed palm sells for 15,000-20,000 VND per kg, braised fruit sells for 30,000 VND. For each crop, a family collects 3-5 million VND from selling fruit.
Braised palm is a rustic gift of the people of Ha Tinh and many provinces. Many chefs also process it into palm sticky rice, salt palm, braised palm with meat, fish… Follow (vnexpress)