Don’t eat drunk, don’t die, eat delicious

Ms. Bui Thi Lieu from Cao Hamlet, Cao Son Township, Luong Son District (Hoa Binh), 70 years old this year, said that she didn’t know how to eat wild jackfruit until she was 40, but Mr. Bui Van did Ruong, her husband, knew how to eat this leaf since childhood. He said cooking fish and crab leaves is also suitable, but the best dish must be fried with buffalo meat.

The special thing is that the sap of the tree is acidic, which is why the Muong used to not cut off every tip with their hands when picking, today it is better with gloves. The wild jackfruit dish is respectfully displayed on the altar by the people on the full moon day, the first day of the lunar new year, but must be fried separately without leaving any garlic, as garlic drives away spirits.

When Mr. Ruong was in the army, he saw that the unit lived in the forest but had no vegetables, so he picked wild jackfruit for processing, the leader was afraid of poison, told him to try alone for three days, otherwise he would agree. Feed your teammates. While teaching in the Truong Son community, he noted that the Dao knew they eat wild jackfruit long before the Muong did.

Mr. Bui Van Khanh, his son, later continued his father’s teaching career. When he saw Ha Linh shopping in the area, where he bought wild jackfruit vegetables and mixed them with mixed vegetables such as banana blossom, peanut, silver blossom, papaya leaf, etc., he was praised by customers and sold up to VND40,000/kg, Mr said Khanh Go back to the table with his wife: “My family grows jackfruit vegetables to sell. Tomorrow, customers buy a lot, available for picking, not on the hill, but sometimes people pick them all.” Ms. Bui Thi Xuyen, his wife, was confused but was persuaded by him to try but later failed.

At the time, he had just returned from classes in the highlands and had bought a 2,000-square-foot plot of land by the creek from his parents to harvest longan roots. But he cut off all the longan to grow jackfruit vegetables, which got the people in the neighborhood laughing: “What do you guys grow jackfruit vegetables for, go up the hill to pick some and you’ll get 3- 5kg?”.

Wild jackfruit vegetables were also quite rare in the area at this time, with many mounds of 5-10 trees and a few mounds of only 1-2 trees. At first he did not know how to dig up stumps the size of a calf, but when he planted them, he often died. Later you learn from experience, cherries small trees. When the nearby hills were treeless, they had to go to the distant hills with a crowbar, rice balls with sesame salt, and a bottle of medicine. Every day, as they trek through the hills, they find 30-40 jackfruit trees.

Once, Khanh’s friend came to play, saw him complaining about jackfruit trees every day, and then told him, “You just go down to the forestry company in Ky Son district, I will harvest wood, and there are so many jackfruit trees in the hills, like.” there are tea trees. !”. Khanh didn’t believe it, saying “You’re just lying!”. But when there were no more jackfruit trees in the surrounding hills, he had to pick up small stumps like chopsticks himself before suddenly remembering his friend’s words and inviting his wife to go there to have a look.

When she arrived and saw that there was a jackfruit tree every 3-4 meters, Xuyen jumped up and exclaimed, “Wow, that’s so much!” and Khanh continued to mumble, “Incredible.” In search of a golden tree, the entire gold mine lay exposed right in front of my eyes. In just 2 days they dug 500 roots but still haven’t completed the mound while the other mounds are side by side and stretch out like cobblestones along the banks of a creek.

The jackfruit trees grow under the canopy of planted woods. When not digging, they burn all the wood and burn it to plant a new litter. He and his wife left at 6 a.m. when the dew had not yet dissipated, came home when the dew began to fall, but still could not, had to hire 5-7 other people to dig. Rent a machine at home to scoop holes available depending on the volume, like growing tea. When the plants come back put them down, don’t fertilize, just water. However, it took them 2 years to dig up most of the jackfruit trees in the forest to plant not only 2,000m2 of land along the creek, but also more than 1ha of hilly land to buy more.

The wild jackfruit tree has fruits as small as a finger, there are many seeds inside, but they can’t grow, so Ms. Xuyen with an intermediate level of forestry tried to cultivate branches, the survival rate is 30%. Last year, this year, she sold several hundred trees to her relatives, VND 15,000 each.

Collect 300-400 million VND/year from wild jackfruit

Wild jackfruit vegetables are very strong, just need to be fertilized with chicken manure and rotted buffalo manure. The leaves have a lot of resin, so few worms can bite, never need to spray, only occasionally see green worms with horns.

“We don’t use medicine, but it’s rumored that we spray because we always see young leaves, because there are many orders, we have to get up from 4-5am to pick, sometimes 7-8am are still Lights on. To pick, I thought I secretly spray drugs. Hearing her say that made me angry. The village headwoman advised her that she kept saying it was because of rumors she couldn’t sell it, she had to dump dozens of kilograms of vegetables into the creek and then force the alleged women to pay for it, but I didn’t do that.

Rumors spread throughout the commune that my husband had to go to every station, one told the other, when they first went inside they denied it. It took months for the rumors to die down,” Xuyen said.

When she planted many jackfruit trees, Ms. Xuyen launched them in upscale restaurants, some places were full of Western guests, Korean guests, and Hanoi giants went golfing. The shopkeeper saw that the vegetables were strange and did not dare to buy them for fear of poisoning, she had to show her how to cook, and then stand there, wait for the food to be ready, no problem, everyone praised how delicious it was was before she left. Currently, Ms. Xuyen’s house has 1.2 hectares of jackfruit forest. Due to the wide field, she gives buds every day. From March to October is the main harvest, every day 30-40 kg are collected and sold at 60,000 VND/kg; From November is a side crop, 10 kg per day.

In the cold season, the forest jackfruit tree hibernates, but this year it wasn’t cold, it’s still sunny, so it also collects 30-40 kg every day to supply restaurants in Luong Son District. It is calculated that she and her husband earn 300-400 million Dong every year, so they just built a very nice Thai roof house.

People used to laugh, now the whole neighborhood wants to learn from their siblings how to grow jackfruit in the forest. They don’t hide their secret, they also encourage people because they think that the restaurants ordering a house are not enough to meet them and if they don’t go to the forest to dig jackfruits to plant, will they are burned by the forest owners after the wood harvest. Therefore, there are 10 households in the village with an average area of ​​2,000-3,000 m2/household.

Xuyen and I went to the hill to pick wild jackfruit. After about 1 hour, a few kilograms of the finished harvested wild jackfruit vegetable was still wet from the night dew and I bought it and gave it to Mr. Bui Van Ngoc, owner of Ngoc Duoc Restaurant in Suoi Bu Hamlet, Truong Son Township, owner of a floating buffalo shop , Clay for processing.

Mr. Ngoc was the first to bring wild jackfruit vegetables to the store, since 2010 with dishes such as mixed dishes and other wild vegetables, if you like bitter, give more spot vegetables, papaya leaves, and if you like sweet, give them. More wild jackfruit leaf or more advanced buffalo beef roasted jackfruit vegetables.

Everyone who ate it praised it, so after only 3 years it was popular in restaurants. In 2016-2017, Ngoc Duoc Restaurant was indeed 14 km from the center of Luong Son district (Hoa Binh), but one day almost 100 cars parked in the yard and ate 2 calves, 3 pigs, 1 quintal chicken and a The figure is 100 million dong, and the average is 30-40 million dong/day.

“Eat on the jackfruit, young and old, girls and boys, it’s very healthy,” Mr. Ngoc said while crushing garlic and slicing buffalo meat for roasting. Because there are lots of vegetables, he doesn’t fry them, but specializes in wild jackfruit. The secret is to first fry fragrant garlic over low heat, then pour in a bowl of water, then put the vegetables, because “the trees on the mountain are thirsty for water”, wait for it to flow out, stir. Fry the cooked meat, and then pour it back in, add a little chili, turn on the heat.

The plate of smoked vegetables was served. No need to wait, it is bubbly, as gentle as fig leaves, as sweet as a vegetable, in general it is delicious to eat, worthy of being one of the first forest vegetables. Mr. Ngoc saw me picking up continuously and laughed, “Today’s restaurant has no lard, it needs to be fried with cooking oil, but if there is, it will be much softer and more delicious.”

While collecting wild jackfruit, Xuyen’s whole body had to be wrapped in a raincoat because she was afraid of dew and resin, and even her cell phone was covered with plastic.