BINH THUAN – At the end of the dry season, the lime trees in the forest produce young leaves, and the people of My Thanh upland go to the mountains to pick them and bring them home to use in their daily meals.
My Thanh is a village of ethnic Raglai people, 50 km from Phan Thiet city, hidden in the middle of mountains and forests. At the end of the dry season, the low forest canopy sheds leaves waiting for rain, the fields around the village stop farming due to lack of water.
People’s life is difficult, many people are idle, few jobs are available. Every morning, they often go to the mountain to find a livelihood by collecting honey, finding medicinal plants or picking wild vegetables, rattan buds, mountain crabs… for food.
At 7 a.m., 40-year-old Ho-yai Tuan, together with his brothers in Suoi Xoai village, made an appointment to go to Ba La Vung mountain with a 7-storey waterfall, to pick lime leaves. After drinking warm water of reishi mushroom to get healthy, they left the bank on a 3 km trail into the mountain.
On the way of walking, Mr. Tuan’s group met many people in Doi Lim hamlet who also came here looking for lime leaves. Passing the Mat Meo stream, they greeted each other, then separated every two of them in the direction of going up the mountain around the 7-storey waterfall area to find and avoid fighting with each other when encountering lime scrub.
Going through the dense bamboo grove beside the stream, Mr. Tuan and Mr. Roong Van Hai discovered a palm tree with luxuriant young leaves. The two brothers put down the basket and reached out to lightly pick the first young leaves.
The wood palm tree is taller than a person’s head, the base is as big as the calf, and grows upright. The branch spread out to eye level, the two only plucked the young leaves at the tip of the green branch. Each young leaf is 5-8 cm long, the tip is pointed, the leaf surface is smooth. Soon, each person’s hand was full of lime, they put each fistful in the bag.
Mr. Tuan said that lime vegetables, known in Raglai as “rem rui”, can only be used with young leaves. Plants with many young leaves are usually 2 m tall or more, with perennials up to 6-7 m tall. Lime scrub only shows young leaves at the end of the dry season so at this time the villagers of My Thanh rush to pick them.
This tree has a special feature that it likes to grow on termite mounds in the forest, below there is high humidity, deep roots, so the tree is still green in the dry season. “Thanks to that, our relatives always have delicious fresh vegetables even in the burning season,” Tuan said.
Lime trees do not grow close together, so after picking this tree, foresters have to wade to find other trees along the mountainside. In the morning, Mr. Tuan and Mr. Hai only found 8 large and small trees, each picked about half a bag. They plucked banana leaves from the forest to cover them so that the lime vegetables would not wilt on the way back in the midday sun.
After picking young leaves on the palm tree, they used a machete to cut down the small branches around the tree. “We have to cut the branches so that the tree can have young leaves, and then have something to pick and eat again next week,” said Mr. Roong Van Hai.
Ms. Ho-yai Thi Xieu from Nui Rua village said that lime leaves have been a specialty of the villagers since ancient times. Lime is used by the Raglai to prepare many delicious dishes thanks to its sweetness, crispness and fleshy texture.
The most popular dish is lime soup cooked with fish or pork. More sophisticated people use leaves to cook soup (roasted rice is cooked like a soup with chicken). In addition, scrubbing boiled lime, dipping it with salt and pepper, is also liked by many people.
“Every year, everyone in the village waits for this season to go to the mountains, find lime to cook soup, eat healthy food,” said Ms. Xieu.
After the trip, Ms. Tieu went around the Tortoise mountain area and picked up a large bowl. She shared some with the neighbors. The rest, she used to cook soup with dried herring and used banana leaves to rub the lime around, put it in a bag to save it for later days.
Mr. Ta-yen Ngoc Quang, Vice Chairman of My Thanh Commune People’s Committee, said that lime is an essential vegetable that is indispensable to the Raglai people from the past to present. In the past, the roads were far from the plains, life was difficult, and lime was considered a hunger-fighting tree for the people in the region.
“When hungry, the villagers often come to pick and cook with rice and sliced iron noodles like a mixed porridge, eat to fight hunger to live through the day,” Mr. Quang said and said that in his childhood, he and his parents had experienced hardships. On a day of famine, he as well as the people in the commune treasured this vegetable very much.
According to Mr. Quang, the forest from thousands of years ago was the place to feed the Raglai people in the highlands of My Thanh. In addition to lime scrub, the forests around the village also have many other natural plants such as: toads, bep leaves, sky cabbage, rattan buds, spring ginseng, forest bananas… for food, in which lime is a precious vegetable. , the most delicious in the highlands.
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