Cơm tấm is “all about utilizing, minimizing food waste and, basically, not giving anything away,” explains Chef Trụ Lang of Mùa Sake, as he stands in front of ingredients from the Mekong Delta. “That matches with the ethos of what these crops are trying to do … show a different way of thinking, a different way of agriculture, a different way of using the land, and using the relationship that we have with the land to coexist.”
Trụ is referring, specifically to the ốc bươu, or black apple snails and floating rice (gạo lúa mùa nổi), that he was challenged to cook with to help showcase products produced as part of WWF-Viet Nam’s Nature-based Solutions (NbS) projects. The undertakings aim to improve the socio-economy and resilience of local communities through sustainable livelihoods while protecting and restoring critical ecosystems.
U Minh Thượng National Park in Kiên Giang province. Photos courtesy WWF-Viet Nam.
The core zone of U Minh Thượng National Park in Kiên Giang province is strictly protected, but increasing market demand frequently drives buffer zone farmers to collect apple snails for their livelihood. These farmers now receive support from WWF to raise responsibly collected snails in waterways, using natural and readily available food sources.
Floating rice being grown in Long An. Photo courtesy WWF-Viet Nam.
Meanwhile, the floating rice was once largely abandoned by local farmers despite its natural cultivation coinciding with flood cycles, and thus, not requiring chemically intensive fertilizers and destructive interference with water flows. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) projects support residents in Kiên Giang and Long An in adopting feasible, sustainable methods for cultivating the floating rice which helps return the land and water to health and fertility.
After boiling the ốc bươu, Trụ chops the meat to make a patty with pork, egg, honey and fish sauce. The juicy meat is fried, topped by the requisite egg with a runny yolk, and presented atop a mound of floating rice. The whole grain rice is at first difficult to approach, Trụ admits, as it is tougher, more flavorful, and requires overnight soaking and a longer cooking time. However, in addition to greater nutritional value than conventional rice, its production helps maintain soil fertility without leaching harmful chemicals across the Mekong’s land and waterways. He offers the advice of mixing some of it into your daily white rice to get some of these benefits.
U Minh Thượng National Park. Photo courtesy WWF-Viet Nam.
Complimented by pickles and more fish sauce, the ốc bươu cơm tấm with floating rice is a wonderfully salty, juicy, complex meal that retains all the charm of the more familiar pork chop version. They taste all the more delicious knowing that the ingredients are the result of projects that support local livelihoods while protecting treasured wilderness areas and natural water and soil balance.
