Autumn Only · Young Green Rice
Cốm
Photo: Bình Giang / Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
Legend says it was invented in a single emergency harvest — a storm threatened to flatten the rice paddies of Vòng village, so farmers cut the grain early and dried it, and liked the result enough to keep doing it.
Glutinous rice is harvested while still young and milky, then roasted, pounded, and husked by hand through repeated passes until it turns into flat, jade-green flakes with a nutty, faintly sweet chew. Hanoi street vendors sell it wrapped in lotus leaves each autumn, sometimes pressed into cakes with mung bean or banana.
Why it's made this way: Vòng village, now a Hanoi suburb, is traditionally credited as the source of the finest cốm and is still where it's most closely associated; local lore holds it was once sent to the royal court as tribute.
More from Vietnam
Part of World of Street Food — 3443 dishes from 118 countries.
Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below.
Photo credits.