When I was a child, every summer when the sun was just beginning to rise, the country roads were bustling with trucks loaded with fresh sugarcane. The trucks were heavily loaded and drove slowly, occasionally falling out of the back of a few loosely tied sugarcane stalks. The children would wait until the trucks were out of sight and then slowly pick them up.
The fresh sugar cane was firm in the hand, covered with a layer of white powder. The older children squatted on the roadside, picking the sugar cane. The younger ones brought it home for their grandmother, so that their mother could use a knife to cut it into pieces. I also ran after them to “pick up” a few round stalks and put them in front of the porch, busily waiting for my grandmother to come home and make a sweet dish: molasses.
In a time when fast food was a luxury, molasses became a favorite snack during free time.
The trees that my grandmother picked up were cut off the edges and tops to eat separately, and the base of the trunk was crushed for juice at the cart with the juicer near the market. My grandmother said that the base part contained a lot of sugar, and when squeezed, it would have a beautiful bright yellow color and be sweet. The top part had a lower sugar content, so when squeezed, it would be less sweet and would easily turn yellow-green.
The sugarcane juice was steamed by my grandmother in a cast iron pot over a small charcoal fire for about 10 hours. She stirred it with a large spoon, placed a stool next to the stove, and skimmed off the foam continuously to make the molasses clear, while telling stories about her time in the youth volunteer force during the resistance war.
I leaned on my grandmother's shoulder, watching her veiny, freckled hands quickly stir the molasses. The pan of molasses bubbled and gurgled, and my stomach growled loudly with hunger. The scent of molasses mixed with the air, sweetening the light sunlight outside, tickling my nose.
After steaming, my grandmother used a thin cloth to strain the honey and remove the dirt. The finished product was measured into glass jars and stored for later use. The honey has a syrupy consistency like honey, is golden in color and has a characteristic sweet taste.
We often spread molasses on grilled rice paper to eat as a snack while waiting for rice or as a side dish on days when there is no food.
Molasses is used to cook sweet soup instead of sugar. It is light and not too harsh, making even people who don't like sweets like my father nod in agreement. Molasses has a lot of sugar, so it helps reduce hunger.
In the days when two boiled eggs mashed in a bowl of fish sauce were enough for a meal for the whole family, foreign-made molasses became a miraculous hunger-relief food.
It is not only a childhood dish, but also an alarm clock in our memories. Whenever we see molasses made by my grandmother, we know that summer is coming. Summer of vacations, exams. Summer of separation and loss.
Not old enough but always trying to act mature, packaged foods gradually replaced homemade molasses. I no longer had a sweet tooth, nor did I run behind trucks to pick up sugar cane in the scorching sun.
When I grow up enough to want to be a child again, and taste the bitterness of life, I will appreciate the sweetness of what my grandmother made in the past.
Perhaps, as many people have said, the nature of dreamers is to always feel nostalgic about old things. I keep waiting to find my childhood, remembering the sweet taste of molasses my grandmother made until I feel restless and restless.
Source: https://baodanang.vn/thuong-sao-mat-mia-que-nha-3265587.html
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