A noodle shop for 35 years, selling more than 100kg of snails every day in Hanoi’s Old Quarter
Co Hue snail vermicelli is popular with diners because of the traditional, standard-flavored broth. Every
October brings with it the wind of good luck. This is when the fragrant plump snails in a bowl of ginger sauce excite many people, whether gourmets or not. This snack of Hanoi people makes anyone remember it when they go and love it when they return.
There is no boiled snail dish anywhere throughout the S-shaped strip stretching from North to South, from plains to mountains, from mainland to remote islands. Yet every October, people's hearts ache when remembering the hot boiled snails on the sidewalks of Hanoians.
People also remember Saigon and Hai Phong snails,... but Hanoi snails have something very special about them. Just eating snails requires choosing the right season, which is autumn. Hanoi - the city of rivers and lakes, has gone through many ups and downs and retains its flavor when preparing snail dishes.
The Northern Delta region is famous for bamboo snails, stone snails, jackfruit snails, stuffed snails, and apple snails amid thousands of sparkling ponds, lakes, and wide fields straight out of stork wings. Of course, not only Hanoi people eat snails. People from all over the world who come to the capital to make a living must also be impressed with snail dishes when they come home because Hanoi people are always delicate in every step of choosing snails, eating snails and enjoying the delicious taste of snails that is not available everywhere. And so in October autumn, when the pig luckily came to the street corner, covered with a light layer of frost, people whispered to each other to go to the street to eat snails.
"October Snail, Hanoian"
Even those new to enjoying snails know that no one eats snails on the Lunar New Year's Day. When the moon wanes or disappears, in other words, at the beginning and end of the month, people "take a break" from playing with snails. At this time, the snails reproduce and are thin and pale, like the saying "Pale as snail water". Snails eat less meat at this time, not fragrant, and they also crunch the baby snails, leaving no taste.
To eat delicious snails, you must choose a full moon day. Strangely, the full or waning moon shows the lunar cycle and guides people on the best time to eat snails. The period when the moon is big and full, radiating a gentle, bright light, is when the snails are fat, and their flesh is full and plump. Gently remove the snail and see that the snail's intestines are smooth and clean, but there are no baby snails.
But it's not just that the rounder the moon, the more delicious the snails are. The moon is full but "already alive" in the fall. Before winter, the snails rush to get nutrients to overcome the cold winter. So, at this time, each snail is fat, has golden intestines, and is plump and sweet. The ancients enjoyed the autumn weather without eating boiled snails. Until now, young or old, adults or children, the cold autumn brings a craving for snails. Walking on the cold, windy road, I want to immediately swoop into the row of snails on the side of the road, inhale the smell of snails boiled in grapefruit leaves, sticky lime leaves, and ginger leaves, and then dip deeply into a bowl of sweet and sour fish sauce to satisfy my cravings.
Boiled snails - "spiritual nutrition" autumn dish
When it comes to snails, there are countless delicious dishes, but people crave the steaming heat of a bowl of boiled snails mixed with the rich smell of lemon leaves, which is what makes them most impressive. Boiled snails - a simple snack to prepare; boil the snails with lemon leaves, lemongrass, and chili.
Bought a fresh batch of jackfruit snails. Autumn jackfruit snails are both fatty and crunchy and have sweet meat. Soak in rice water, cut a few chili slices, and add a little lemon or vinegar to remove sand and dirt. Now, the more skillful women even put in stainless steel spoons and crack eggs into the snails so they can release them quickly. Having rice water soaked in snails is both clean and boiled and tastes better.
The small details that affect the delicious snail pot are right from the time of soaking and washing the snails. You have to pick out those floating limply and open their mouths. Don't be foolish and feel sorry for these snails. Just one dead snail is enough to ruin the whole pot of fatty snails.
Choose when to eat snails, know how to soak and wash snails, boil snails, and choose what to eat with snails. Snails are inherently cold, so you need to be even more careful when eating them in the cold weather of autumn. In particular, when eating snails in the evening, people with weak stomachs will easily have stomachaches. Therefore, in the pot of boiled snails, warm leaves with many essential oils, such as grapefruit leaves, lemon leaves, lemongrass, and ginger leaves, are often used to balance the cold properties of snails.
Prepare it properly and boil it when it's almost ready to eat. Because boiled snails cook quickly, nothing is interesting about eating them after being boiled for a long time. Each house and restaurant have a different secret to boiling delicious snails. Some families use lemon leaves and grapefruit leaves; Others use chili and ginger leaves. In short, all these wild leaves are indispensable in the pot of boiled snails.
The fun of eating snails in Hanoi is that if you don't eat them at home, you should eat them at a sidewalk restaurant. In busy cities, people often use sharp needles to pry snails, but to eat snails properly, you must use grapefruit or locust thorns. Poke the screw, gently twist it, and the snail's body will float away. Dip the snails into a sweet, sour, spicy, fragrant fish sauce bowl. Eating snails and "hearing" the fragrant aroma of julienned sticky rice leaves, chewing the snail to enjoy the crunchy, fatty, sweet meat is enjoyable. To calm the stomach even more, people add a bowl of snail broth rich in ginger and lemongrass scent for dessert.
In addition to boiled snails, Hanoi people have many other delicious snail dishes that are enough to give you a "toothache". This autumn, fat snails are delicious in any dish, from boiled snails, snail rolls, snail noodles, snails cooked with banana and beans, snails steamed with ginger leaves, snails stuffed with bamboo leaves, cold snail noodles,...
If you wander around 36 streets in Hanoi, everyone has a familiar shop as a rendezvous with autumn. A bowl of rustic, delicious, boiled snails draw people closer and closer to the land of Hanoi. Then, no matter how far away we go, filled with nostalgia for Hanoi, somewhere we can still see a little bit of aroma, a little bit of spiciness, a little bit of crunchiness of Hanoi land snail meat deeply engraved in our minds.
