Light Vietnamese Fish Soup

This fish soup should be eaten hot. I ate it slowly.

My friend texted me: “Come down to the apartment gate—quick!” I went down, and she handed me a still-hot two-tiered tiffin carrier. “For you. Eat it while it’s hot. Canh cá nấu ngót. There’s rice too.”

I lifted a piece of white pomfret from the top tier onto a plate. The broth was clear and fragrant with scallions, coriander, and pepper. Red tomatoes. Yellow pineapple. I poured myself a small dish of fish sauce and crushed into it a few green chilies. The rice was hot and fragrant. I teased a piece of fish free from the bones, dipped it in the fish sauce, and ate it with rice. It had been a long time since I’d tasted this.

Back then, whenever I saw white pomfret in the basket my mother brought home from the market, I knew we would be having fish soup that day. If it was black pomfret instead, we would have it fried. I would sit and watch my mother clean the fish.

“Why don’t you fry the white pomfret, Mom?”

“White pomfret has soft flesh, so it’s better for soup. Black pomfret is firmer, so we fry it,” she said.

My mother always said to choose fish with clear eyes and bright red gills. If the fish wasn’t fresh, no matter how you cooked it, it wouldn’t taste good. She told me that Spanish mackerel, small ponyfish, and many other kinds of fish could be used for this soup. We lived near the sea. Fish caught in the morning and cooked for lunch made the best fish soup. I heard all that but didn’t pay much attention. I didn’t like fish back then

I helped pound shallots with salt; my mother could rub the mixture onto the fish pieces. She added a little fish sauce and ground pepper. When the water came to a boil, the fish pieces went in. After a while the flesh turned from cloudy white to a clean pale white, and my mother added tomatoes and pineapple. The smell rising from the pot made my stomach rumble.

On summer middays in Central Vietnam, the sea wind blew hot and heavy. The whole family gathered around the round wooden table. A plate of crunchy, lightly sour bean-sprout pickles sat beside an empty plate waiting for the fish and a bowl of fish sauce with chilies. My mother lifted the fish out onto the plate. Everyone began to eat.

I looked at the plate of fish. My mother understood. She used her chopsticks to separate a piece of boneless fish and placed it in my bowl. My sister poured fish sauce into a small bowl and slid it closer to me.

“Dip it in this so it won’t be too spicy.”

I dipped the fish, picked up some bean-sprout pickles, and shoveled a big mouthful of rice. Back then, all I cared about was eating.

When I started my second bowl of rice, I ladled some soup over it. My mother reminded me, “Careful, it’s hot.” The pineapple was sweet, the tomatoes slightly tart. The scallion stems were crisp. The broth was gently sweet, with the faintest hint of the sea. By the time my bowl was empty, my back was damp with sweat, yet somehow I felt cool.

Since leaving home for school and later for work, I don’t think I’ve eaten a bowl of fish soup quite like the one my mother used to make. I mentioned that to my friend the other day, and I never expected that today I would taste it again.

Fish soup like this should be eaten quickly, while it’s still hot.

I eat it slowly.

Note: Vietnamese cuisine includes many kinds of fish soup. The one described in this essay is canh cá nấu ngót, a light home-style soup in which fish is simmered in a clear broth with tomatoes, pineapple, and herbs. In this context, nấu ngót refers to a gentle, lightly sweet style of soup.

mlefood – Minh Lê NT

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