P3 The United Sweet Soup

When the economic conditions changed, how has Chè Thưng adapted to survive?

Chè Bà Ba

After 1975, the charming chant of chè bột khoai vanished from the streets of Saigon. Sugar, mung beans and other ingredients became rare in a subsidized economy. By the 1980s, sugarcane, sweet potato, and cassava were grown abundantly in gardens and new economic zones, and sugar became available again. This was when the original sweet soup chè bà ba became popular.

Chè bà ba at first only has small cubes of sweet potatoes and tapioca balls the size of marbles, cooked with sugar and coconut milk to make a thick hot dessert. Mrs. Chin’s shop in Gia hamlet, Hong Bang street (ward 11, district 11, HCMC) still sells the original chè bà ba. The soup sells out quickly every time Mrs. Chin makes it. Perhaps many Vietnamese want to revisit their childhood treat, don’t they?

After that, chè bà ba began to include cassava, taro, sago pearls, and fried seaweed. It is a versatile dessert that can adjust to more or less ingredients depending on your taste and choice. People in the South often choose this dessert to celebrate their ancestors’ anniversaries and New Year’s Eve in difficult times, because the ingredients are readily available and the dessert is tasty, affordable and satisfying.

But how did chè bà ba get its name? According to some online sources, the name was derived from the first person who sold it. She was a woman named Ba, and “chè bà ba” means “chè cooked by a woman named Ba” in Vietnamese. She sold it at Binh Tay market, located in Saigon’s Cho Lon area.

It sounds reasonable, but it doesn’t seem right to Vietnamese culture. Vietnamese people do not have the habit of naming a dish by their own name, nor do they have the habit of calling a dish after the name of its creator. 

If they had, bánh chưng (square sticky rice cake with pork and beans, a Tết specialty) would have been called “Lang Lieu cake” and watermelon “An Tiem melon” a long time ago. (In Vietnamese legends, Lang Liêu invented bánh chưng and An Tiem discovered watermelon on an island.)

When I searched for the word “ba ba” without any tone marks, I encountered a captivating result. Cho Lon is home to the Baba Nyonya people, a unique blend of cultures that traces back to the 19th century, when Chinese-Malaysian traders came to Saigon and married the locals. The Vietnamese call them “Bà-Ba”. 

The Baba Nyonya community has a signature dish: a creamy and colorful sweet soup called Bubur Cha-cha, made with sweet potatoes, cassava, yam, sago pearls, fried seaweeds, coconut milk and rock sugar. 

The recipe of Bubur Cha-cha is very similar to chè bà ba’s. Is Bubur Cha-cha the forerunner of chè bà ba? And does chè bà ba take its name from the Baba group, like Siamese duck or Thai sweet soup? Or is it a Vietnamese pronunciation of the word Bubur? It is a fascinating mystery that requires more research and luck to solve.

If the above hypothesis is correct, I assume that chè bà ba has been around in Vietnam for ages in the Baba Nyonya community but was not known to the outside world. After 1975, when sweet potatoes and cassava became staple foods, chè bà ba took off because it was a good way to spice up the plain roots.

As time went by, chè bột khoai became integrated with chè bà ba, adding ingredients such as mung beans, tapioca sticks, and wood ear mushrooms. Peanuts, a popular Vietnamese topping, were also included. Eventually, chè tào thưng, chè bột khoai and chè bà ba merged into a rich and colorful dessert. This new creation was given a short and simple name: Chè Thưng!

The United Sweet Soup: Chè Thưng

Golden sweet potatoes swirl with ivory cassava and lavender taro. Emerald fried seaweed dances with crystal tapioca pearls. Sunny mung beans sparkle like jewels with rosy peanuts. All of them are tender and toothsome, earthy and sweet, rich and creamy. What other sweet soup in the world can rival this kaleidoscope of flavors and textures?

Chè Thưng is the true pride of Saigon and the South of Vietnam, a reflection of their multicultural and open-minded spirit. It is not just chè tào thưng, nor merely chè bột khoai or chè bà ba, but a rich and diverse fusion. It is a sweet soup that welcomes new things and makes them its own. 

From mung beans, tapioca sticks, wood ear mushrooms, and coconut milk to sweet potatoes, cassava, taro, fried seaweed and peanuts, the ingredients in Chè Thưng come from different cuisines. They all harmonize together in a magical way to give birth to Chè Thưng – the dessert that goes beyond its originals.

I dream of the day when Chè Thưng will be celebrated as one of the jewels of Vietnamese cuisine, alongside the iconic bánh mì thịt, the indispensable nước mắm, and the ubiquitous phở. I envision opening a renowned dictionary like the Oxford Companion to Food or the Larousse Gastronomique and finding the entry for Chè Thưng glowing with praise and admiration, tracing its history and origin with curiosity and respect.

I picture attending a global food festival and seeing a Vietnamese stall with a cheerful lady wearing a traditional bà ba blouse, sitting next to two bamboo hangers of a shiny stainless pot and colorful ceramic bowls. She chants:

“Who wants to taste the sweet soup with tapioca sticks, fried seaweed, mung beans, coconut milk and sweet potatoes?”

Who knows? Maybe that day is not far away.

mlefood