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The English content below is automatically generated by Google Translate. Please ignore any wrong wordings or you could change the default language to Vietnamese.
“Delicious food is remembered for a long time, painful blows are remembered for a lifetime.”
In the past, every child liked to sulk and pout when their mother spanked them. Sun Wukong’s 72 magical powers are 72 reasons given for a mother to pity herself and her beloved child who was beaten with stripes. I don’t want to eat, I don’t want to bathe, I don’t want to sleep… but just by catching a glimpse of my mother coming home from the market carrying a package of cakes, I forget everything and run with my eyes to help her bring it into the house.
You can give up any craving, only craving for snacks is difficult to give up. Because these are gifts that are rarely tasted.
Hanoi now has so many delicious dishes from the West, America, Korea, China, and Japan. Walking along Linh Lang or Phan Ke Binh street, finding a pho restaurant is difficult, because they only sell sushi, and the drink must also be Japanese udon noodles. Or children nowadays, if they want to eat, they can go to KFC, Circle K, Mixue to eat. They have fifty or a hundred in their pockets, but no parent wants their child to eat a load of tea drying in the rain and a few pieces of cake. Pig skin soaked day after day in a plastic bag, the mushy, mushy butter of an ice cream sundae only costs 15 thousand.
Eating sushi, eating raw fish, eating premium beef, eating children from heaven and earth, but after a long time, I miss something else. One summer afternoon, driving through Hang Luoc street, looking at the Hong Kong Pastry shop, I suddenly felt a strong craving, craving for the bland sweetness of the cake, craving to be called “Double bird cake, Hotgon cake for me” and then smiled to myself. together, craving the feeling of longing when you and the cake are only separated by a glass window. Looking at the layer of hot butter that melts, looking at the cake flinching, looking at the black dots and red streaks the way the baker drew a face on the cake, naturally reminds us that, ah, so this is why we love Hanoi, because it is associated with my childhood, and childhood is a part of the soul of the person I am today.
There are people in their early 40s and 50s who just want to taste it again, the taste of sticky rice with corn that has passed through their mother’s hands. Why does corn sticky rice feel bland when eaten alone, but holding it in my mother’s hands is strangely sweet and delicious?
High-rise buildings filled with electric lights can captivate us, graceful dresses fascinate us, but on a scorching hot summer day, or a numbing cold afternoon, when work is heavy on our shoulders. , a lost love on the road of life, suddenly felt nostalgic for summer afternoons sitting on the porch, eating cakes and drinking sweet soup that my mother bought, so that the sweetness would never melt on the tip of my tongue.
Childhood delicacies are like a memory of me and Hanoi. Private, nostalgic, poignant, sad. There are days when I eat and cry, feeling disappointed because I let the past slip through my hands, and I miss those who can’t return. At that time, I understood why “good food” was kept with “painful blows”, because when I see food, I think of people. The table cage hid so many delicious and fragrant gifts that day, but now there is no sign of anyone busily preparing them for me.
However, over the years Hanoi has changed, there are still people silently standing behind the cake counter, quietly carrying light burdens through 36 streets, to sell childhood gifts to people who miss their childhood and sell to children. Poor children don’t have a few hundred in their pockets, but only have a mere 5,000 or 10,000 that their mother gives them.
Remembering those childhood gifts, not only remembering the small bakery in the alley that has now been spacious and renovated, but also remembering the laughter at noon when my mother sneaked out to buy gifts, remembering the longing licking of my little sister’s lips, I miss the sound of stirring spoons jingling when cooking a pot of fragrant sweet soup, miss home, miss small streets, how noisy and fun it is!
So, I once again looked in Hanoi for delicious dishes and snacks, and when I ate it, I felt the taste of childhood, felt like I was reliving my innocence, found myself falling in love with Hanoi more, and secretly looked forward to the delicious flavors of Hanoi. The sweetness will remain in my heart forever.
