Specialities of Ben Tre – the coconut kingdom
14-Jan-2020
Coconut candy, My Long rice paper and Son Doc prawn crackers are the local specialties that tourists often buy as a souvenir when visiting Ben Tre.
Coming to Ben Tre, besides visiting the isles and green coconut gardens, do not forget to try the local dishes.
Coconut candy
Ben Tre coconut candy is famous for being the best kind of coconut candy in Vietnam, especially Mo Cay coconut candy. When visiting this coconut kingdom, you should never miss this specialty. Besides the traditional flavor, locals even combine coconut with peanut or even durian to bring some unique tastes.
Tourists can even come to the workshop to see the whole process of making coconut candy.
My Long rice paper
My Long, the village of rice paper is quite well-known in the Western area of Vietnam. Tourists can choose among many flavors such as coconut extract liquid with a sweet flavor, salty flavor or with milk or eggs. Salty rice paper can also have Chinese sausage, dried shrimps or ginger.
A yard drying rice paper.
The paper should be made from a local rice called gao soi at Tra Vinh as rice paper made from this kind of rice is hard to break and shrink under the sun.
The most difficult step in making this rice paper is to make sure the powder is equally spread so the maker should have some technical skills. Normally, people bake the paper on coal to make it fully baked on both sides so that customers can feel the crispiness in their mouth. Moreover, rice paper is also used for rolling spring rolls or meat, raw fish and vegetables and dip in a special sauce.
Son Doc crackers
To make crackers, people usually choose a local kind of sticky rice, cook into rice and then grind with coconut extract liquid , sugar, etc. After that, the sticky rice is made into crackers.
Each bag with 10 crackers has a price from 55,000 VND.
When drying the crackers, people also have to take into account the weather; if it is too sunny, the crackers will become too tough and when it is rainy, the crackers will be too wet and cannot be consumed. When baking, the crackers will expand 3 or 4 times its original size, giving off a really nice odor. Besides rice crackers, people also make wheat crackers or banana crackers.
Giong Luong coconut cake
The well-known Giong Luong coconut cake in Ben Tre.
The cake is wrapped with the young top leaves of a nipa. To make the cake, the cook have to select the leaf, slice into strings and then tie into a mould to put the cake into.
The skin of the cake is made from sticky rice and fillings are green beans, black beans or banana. Firstly, rice is put into the moud, then beans or bananas are added and the leaves are used to wrap the cake horizontally.
Giong Luong coconut cake is really soft with a nice odor of sticky rice, coconut and the young leaves.
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