River and Stream’s Green Mosses – Precious Dish of Many Ethnic Minority Groups in the Northwest Mountainous Area of Vietnam

Mosses in rivers or streams have long been an interested dish of many ethnic minority groups like Thai, H’ Mong, Muong, etc. Village patriarchs said that green mosses were also a useful medicine.

Together groping for green mosses is an interesting cultural feature of ethnic people of the northwest mountainous s area. In the gross crop, all people of a village temporarily stop their cultivation and together go to banks of big rivers or streams to pick mosses on good days. They use green mosses as reserved food and/or gifts for their relatives.

The way to process green mosses is similar in all minority groups. Mosses are put on large flat rocks. Then people use big bamboo and wood sticks to lash mosses and pick out gravel and grit before putting them in xa or khieng, which is like a flat basket, to wash until clean. Finally, clean mosses are kept with slight salt water for 10 to 15 minutes and then are washed again before being minced and mixed with spices to make the following dishes:

* Khay pho: Spices include garlic, onion, mac khen, ginger, chilli, fennel, minced lemon leaves and citronella bulb mixed with minced mosses which are added by an adequate quantity of salt. The mixture is then wrapped into phrynium or banana leaves, which is then buried into hot straw ashes that is surrounded by live coals for no less than 2 hours until the phrynium or banana leaves are dry.

* Khay pinh : After carrying out all processing steps as Khay Pho, people wrap ripe mosses into la lot or lemon leaves before gripping them in cleft bamboo sticks which are then grilled until ripe. Afterwards, people fry them by pig fat.