Crispy, fried and packed full of worms: Hanoi’s cha ruoi rag worm fritters are a winter foodie favorite in the Vietnamese capital, but the deep-fried delights are not for the squeamish.
The piping hot patties are made with pork, egg, fresh dill, citrus rind and a hefty handful of fried worms and served up from street food stalls and home kitchens across northern Vietnam.
The edible critters flood farmers’ fields as temperatures in the north drop in October and November.
Photo: AFP
Purveyors of the snack, which cost about US$1 each, urge customers not to be put off by the sinuous insides.
“It looks ugly, but don’t be afraid,” said Bui Thi Nga, whose family has served up the speciality for 30 years.
“The insides are delicious and they’re high in protein,” she told reporters from her Old Quarter stall on a chilly afternoon earlier this month.
The worms can also be stewed in a sticky caramel sauce, stirred with herbs or mixed with chilies to make a spicy condiment.
However, rag worm fritters — best prepared while the wriggling worms are still alive — have long been a favorite.
The pancake-shaped patties have been made in northern Vietnam for generations and are even credited with keeping married couples happy.
“If a couple misses even a bite of cha ruoi during the season, not only will the wife lament, but the husband will surely complain,” author Vu Bang wrote his his 1952 book Hanoi Delicacies.
Although Vietnamese cuisine is best known outside its borders for pho noodle soup and banh mi pate baguettes, winter fritters are not the only dishes to feature creepy-crawlies. Deep fried crickets, squirming coconut worm larvae, locusts and stink bugs are all on offer on Vietnamese menus.
Chefs from Paris to Sao Paulo have embraced the trend, dishing up grasshoppers or scorpions as a cheap and sustainable source of protein.
In Hanoi, cha ruoi will no doubt remain a cold-weather staple.
“I like eating cha ruoi in the winter. You’ve got the sweet-and-sour flavor from the dipping sauce, and the herbs are cooling ... it is very unique,” Hoang Thi Thu Hang told reporters.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
RSS