Sweets from my mother's hometown

As tradition, whenever we travel somewhere, we always get something back home for friends, for loved ones. Sometime we give something to someone with a message, if you have a friend who loves to exaggerate all kinds of stories, I may suggest you to give him or her "bánh nổ", i.e "explosion cake". "Nổ" (i.e explosion) in Vietnamese still jokingly means "exaggerate". I'm kidding.

By the way, bánh nổ is a speciality from my mother's hometown - Quảng Ngãi. I remember if someone coming from Quảng Ngãi, visiting my mom, after they left, I surely found few packs of bánh nổ in our living table.

                 Bánh nổ - "explosion cake" - a speciality from Quảng Ngãi.

Bánh nổ made of special rice, I guess, or maybe sticky rice, exactly like popcorn, popping corn, expands from the kernel and puffs up when heated. Then they mix popping rice with some sirup, ginger and form it in the square shape, cut into thick slices...The word "nổ" surely comes from the sound when the rice is popping, 

But Quảng Ngãi is still famous for some other sweets such as malt candy (kẹo mạch nha) in a recycled can of condensed milk, glass candy (kẹo gương) or "bánh thuẩn" (a kind of small hardened sponge cake!). My mother family used to be a famous malt candy maker with a shop named "Thiên Thai" (i.e Heaven) in 1940s or 50s but then when my grandma passed away, most of my mother's relatives moved to Saigon. The shop has been closed, the brand name "Thiên Thai" was forgotten.
I actually don't like malt candy, it's like a super thick sirup, very sticky, when eating, it always sticks in my mouth, my teeth, but I quite like when we put it on grilled rice paper with some coconut shreds. It's really good snack for kids. I did even eat the malt candy with bread in my childhood.

             Another traditional sweet from Quảng Ngãi : dried green bean cake "bánh in" 

Bánh in (literally "print" cake) - the name of this dried green bean cake surely come from the way how people mould it, like print it - one after another. Quite sweet, tasty and it's good to be served with a cup of nice hot fragrant tea. I realised that if Vietnamese do more traditional sweets with green bean, Japanese - more with red bean, and maybe somewhere else - white bean or black bean? I don't know.  

My niece's friend brought all these sweets for me but he failed to find my favourite soft "print cake", filled with black bean, some sesame on top. I didn't taste it for quite long, my last time in Quảng Ngãi was almost 10 years ago.

            Another kind of "bánh in", quite new to me, made of brown rice powder. Taste is strange!  

The next one is "beef jerky". To be honest I never think "beef jerky" is a speciality from this Central land. Everywhere does! So I just wonder why it's famous in Quảng Ngãi. All my nieces said that's the best. I agreed after tasting, it could be because of the beef meat quality, the best from there, same with pork or fish - much better than in Saigon. 

The beef jerky is quite spicy, the texture is not too dried, half dried half wet, a bit juicy, very tasty. So I share some photos here, if you have a chance to stop by in this small town, try to get some "beef jerky" from Quảng Ngãi for your friends. 

           Khô bò or beef jerky is quite popular in Quảng Ngãi, a favourite snack for many people. 

            When you eat beef jerky you may never stop, just keep eating this spicy, tasty snack. 

Talking about the speciality from Quảng Ngãi, I still remember one very "countryside" snack, I don't know how to call it. The dried shreds of white potatoes cooked with a special "sugar-honey" (đường mật), either with some slices of ginger or without, but there was time I really adored this snack. And it was long time ago, I never had a chance to taste it again, I heard the "sugar-honey" is no longer made in Quảng Ngãi...Time goes by, some eating habit also changed.