Hang Duong Street

Black, yellow, pink. In the glass cases along Hàng Đường Street, ô mai stands in rows of jars, each kind its own color. Apricot ô mai is black, ginger ô mai is yellow, and peach ô mai is pink. Ô mai is fruit preserved with sugar or salt. Most of it is made from sấu, apricots, plums and tamarind, fruits so sour they make the eyes squint. And it is all laid out on a street whose name means Sugar Street, the sweetest name in Hanoi. To understand this odd pairing, walk the short street slowly, look into each shop front, and listen for what it still keeps.

Hàng Đường is about 180 meters long and 8 meters wide. One end meets Hàng Ngang Street. The other end opens onto Đồng Xuân Street. Halfway along, it crosses the junction of Hàng Cá and Ngõ Gạch. A walker coming up from Hàng Đào passes through Hàng Ngang first, then reaches this street. This is one of the great trading routes of the Old Quarter, and it runs straight on to Đồng Xuân market.

The name dates from before the French came. Under French rule, it was translated literally as rue du Sucre, Sugar Street. In 1945, the Vietnamese name was given back. Through every round of street renaming since, that sweet name has stayed put.

The ground beneath the street once belonged to two villages. The first stretch was Vĩnh Thái village land. The last stretch belonged to Đông Hoa Nội Tự village. And here is something hard to believe. Long ago, the Tô Lịch River flowed right across this spot and then curved away toward the Bưởi area. A stone bridge called Cầu Đông spanned the river. People of old said that at the head of the bridge sat a stone statue of the Buddha, smiling at everyone who passed. That stretch of river and that bridge now live only in stories, and in the name of a pagoda.

That pagoda stands right on the street. Its formal name is Đông Môn, but people in Hanoi know it as Cầu Đông Pagoda. Among the packed shop fronts, it sits modest and quiet. Inside are four old stone steles. The earliest was set up in 1624. The bronze bell of the pagoda is dated to the eighth year of the Cảnh Thịnh reign. That is the year 1800. An inscription on the bell mentions the stone bridge to the east, and the Tô River flowing on the left side of the pagoda. More than 200 years ago, the bell recorded a scene people today can only imagine.

The pagoda also holds a riddle that no one has solved. To the left of the altar stand two wooden statues. They show Grand Chancellor Trần Thủ Độ and his wife, Trần Thị Dung. The chancellor was the statesman who brought the Trần dynasty to power. Why the couple sit in a pagoda on this street, no one knows for sure. The pagoda keeps no old records that tell the story of the two statues.

On the same street stands the Đức Môn communal house. Tradition holds that it is dedicated to Ngô Văn Long, a fine general in the time of Hùng Duệ Vương. That king is counted as the 18th of the Hùng Kings, whom Vietnamese people honor as their ancestors. Stranger still is the Vĩnh Hanh communal house. It carries the later name of the old village of Vĩnh Thái. Today it sits on the third floor of a house on the street. A village communal house on a third floor sounds strange just to hear of.

Now, back to the sweetness. In the past, Hàng Đường sold candied fruit, cakes and sweets, things that all needed sugar. Nearly every house on the street made candied fruit. Tết is the Lunar New Year festival in Vietnam. In the days just before it, families set up stoves and cooked pans of candied fruit right on the sidewalk. Fruit was stirred and cooked down in sugar, and a soft, sweet smell drifted over the whole end of the street. People walking by could smell Tết before they saw a single stall.

In the 1940s, a few small ô mai shops began to appear. A longtime maker says the first kinds of ô mai on the street were stir-cooked plums and tamarind. Apricot ô mai came later. Then, house by house, ô mai spread along the whole street, until people began calling Hàng Đường the street of ô mai.

The puzzle from the start turns out to be simple. Ô mai is made from sour fruits such as sấu, apricots, plums, tamarind, star fruit and kumquats, along with hot ginger. But what softens that sourness and makes it chewy is sugar. The maker also adds salt, ginger, slaked lime, alum and licorice, a little of each, balanced by skill. A good piece of ô mai should be thick and chewy. It holds sour, hot, salty and sweet all at once, the flavors blended together, yet each one still distinct.

The street has some 60 to 70 kinds of ô mai. Each house has its own secret for soaking, seasoning and drying. Ô mai cannot be eaten in a hurry. It has to be nibbled a little at a time, so the sourness melts slowly on the tongue. Children eat it because they like it. Grown-ups eat it because it brings back memories.

In the old days, when Tết came, the host offered guests a plate of candied fruit beside the teapot, to warm the conversation. The Tết tray of candied fruit was also laid out in five colors: green, red, yellow, white and black. It carried the hope of a balanced and lucky new year. Older generations believed candied ginger helped with colds and candied kumquat eased a cough. Ô mai, held in the mouth, was thought to soothe the throat. People in Hanoi with family in the south often choose ô mai made from sấu as a gift. It sends a little taste of Hanoi a long way off.

Today, no steaming pans line the sidewalk. Most of the candied fruit here is now made by machine. Only a few houses still make it by hand, adjusting the sugar and the heat for each kind of fruit. The street front is now glass cases, rows of ô mai jars and neatly stacked gift boxes. The street is busiest in the days before Tết and before the full moon of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

At the end of Hàng Đường, the stream of people flows on toward Đồng Xuân market. Left behind are the small pagoda that keeps the name of a vanished bridge, the village communal house on a third floor, and the name the French once translated as Sugar Street. A piece of ô mai rests on the tongue. Sour first, then hot, then salty. And at last, slowly, the sweetness comes through.