Coconut Cracker, Bánh Ép

Coastal life: a coconut cracker and a new snack.

Tam Quan Coconut Cracker 

Salty sea wind. Coconut fronds sway. The trunks rise so high that even craning your neck, you barely glimpse the crown. In Tam Quan, Bình Định, century-old coconut trees are not uncommon. The sandy soil does not suit rice as well as elsewhere, but coconuts and cassava thrive in it.

A man stands high in the crown of a coconut tree. Old fronds fall away. A heavy cluster of coconuts is lowered by rope to the ground. The husks are dried for fuel. The fiber is woven into mats. The shells become ladles. The water and the flesh go into a kind of cracker that people in Tam Quan eat when they are hungry. Nothing from the coconut goes unused.

After repeated soaking and straining, the cassava starch is smooth and pliable. Shallots are sliced. Pepper is crushed. Sesame seeds are toasted. Salt. Sometimes a little fresh chili. Grated coconut is mixed with coconut milk, starch, and seasonings. The mixture turns thick and glossy. Salty, rich, and spicy.

Ms. Phúc lifts a coconut-shell ladle, dark and glossy with use. She scoops the batter and spreads it into a circle on a stretched cloth. Beneath the cloth, water boils steadily. She runs a thin wooden stick across the surface, smoothing the batter into a thick, even layer. On the pot beside it, a coconut cracker is already cooked. Her husband uses two flat chopsticks to lift it out and lay it on a bamboo rack. 

“Push the husk down so the heat is even. Then the cracker cooks evenly,” Ms. Phúc says. Her daughter answers and pushes the rice husks harder.

In the yard, racks of coconut crackers slowly dry in the sun and wind. The crackers are as large as a full moon, thick and heavy in the hand. A faint scent of rich coconut, starchy cassava, and coconut-husk smoke. The smell of a backyard garden.

Ms. Phúc grew up with coconut crackers, and worked in the trade for decades, like many other women in Tam Quan. In the dry season, her family works from morning until night. The crackers are thick; they need enough sun. In the rainy season, she waits for a clear day before lighting the fire. Sometimes it rains in the middle of a batch, and it is lost.

Coconut crackers are not eaten raw. They have to be grilled. Charcoal heat transforms them. Ms. Phúc clamps a cracker in an iron rack, turning it evenly. The cracker shifts from white to yellow, puffs slightly, turns crisp.

Her daughter breaks off a piece from a freshly grilled cracker, and jerks her hand back from the heat, then carefully brings it to her mouth. The taste is salty, unlike the slightly sweet coconut crackers found elsewhere. People in Tam Quan find it familiar. Elsewhere, it tastes unfamiliar.

Toward evening. Ms. Phúc and her husband carry the racks inside, stacking the crackers into piles, ten to a bundle. Their daughter ties the bundles with red plastic string. The family works without stopping. When they are hungry, they break off pieces of crackers to eat.

Coconut crackers need nothing else. They are a meal in themselves.

Thuận An’s Bánh Ép

The eatery begins to fill around three or four in the afternoon. Motorbikes are packed tightly outside, people sitting close together. Voices calling for bánh ép mingle with laughter and talk. A group of students in uniform eat and joke at the same time. A young mother patiently feeds her baby; at moments, the child reaches out to grab the cake. Someone eats while glancing around with quiet curiosity, a large backpack resting beside the stool.

On the table, a plate of golden bánh ép sits beside fresh Vietnamese coriander. Sliced cucumber and sweet-sour shredded carrot and papaya are set out for rolling into the cake. Sometimes there is a small bundle of tré, a fermented pork mixture, sour and scented with galangal. The dipping sauce is thick and glossy, speckled with tiny chili flakes. A roll of bánh ép is crisp yet chewy, salty and sweet, laced with sourness and heat. Some people stop when the plate is empty, saving their appetite for dinner at home. Others keep eating until they are full.

In the kitchen, the soot-black cast-iron pans are lined up in a row. Charcoal glows a vivid red. A large basin holds small white lumps of cassava dough, each with shrimp or pork filling. Dough is dropped into the center of the pan, and heavy lids clank shut. Pans are flipped back and forth over the fire, the motion like fanning a flame. When the cake sets, egg and scallions are added, the lid closes again, and the pan is turned again and again. A minute later, a pliant bánh ép is slid onto a plate. The dry version takes longer, until the cake turns crisp.

In Thuận An, bánh ép began as a way of using what was left over. Besides fishing, people here have long made tapioca wrappers. These wrappers were used as bases for peanut candy, or to set a scoop of ice cream on. Whenever there was extra batter, mothers added salt and tiny shrimp, pressing it into small savory wrappers, and calling them bánh ép. For the children of the seaside village back then, few things tasted better than a piece of bánh ép eaten when hungry.

In the 2000s, more visitors began coming to Thuận An’s beach. A few families, already making tapioca wrappers, tried making bánh ép to sell to tourists. The cakes were cheap and unusual. Some people bought them to eat after coming back from the sea. Others sat and nibbled while looking out at the water. Word spread through Huế and beyond; more and more people came to eat and buy.

Vendors wanted to keep their customers, so bánh ép became more elaborate: pork, scallions, egg, sometimes even dried beef. Each ingredient is added in a thin layer, sliced fine, never piled high. Small in amount, just enough—a Huế way of adding. Then come quick-pickled carrot and green papaya, cucumber, Vietnamese coriander, and dipping sauce. More pickled vegetables and herbs than protein—filling, but not heavy.

O Kiều has been selling bánh ép in Thuận An for nearly twenty years. At her stall, customers rarely have to wait. In the kitchen, each cast-iron pan hangs from a chain at one end, so they can be turned with ease. O Kiều says, “This way makes it easier.” Regulars whisper that the dipping sauce at her place is the best in Thuận An.

Not only O Kiều—others in Thuận An are also finding their own ways. Over the past few years, a group of young locals have built a place for making bánh ép with electric machines. The cakes keep longer, travel farther. The packaging is neat. The taste remains familiar, even as the method has changed.

Bánh ép is a relatively new snack, made with a Huế sense of measure.

Note:

– “O” is a local Hue form of address for a woman.

mlefood – Minh Lê

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