Lai Vung Fermented Pork Rolls

Quick fingers press a handful of pink meat onto a small green leaf. They smooth it back and forth until the meat lies flat in a neat square.

The other hand lays a slice of white garlic and a small green bird's eye chili on top. Both hands lift the banana leaf spread underneath and fold each edge over the meat, snug and tight, into a small, compact parcel. A fingertip winds a string once around the leaf parcel and ties it firmly.

The woman sets the finished roll down beside the others, then reaches for the next leaf. Every one is square, every one green, every one neatly tied. When she has ten, she binds them together into a bunch.

She is wrapping nem chua from Lai Vung. Nem chua is a fermented pork roll, made from lean pork and pork skin. Lai Vung lies beside the Hậu River in Đồng Tháp province, a land of many pink tangerine orchards.

The roll she has just tied is not yet nem chua. Only once it has turned sour does an adult peel back the leaves to find a bright pink inside. Against that pink lies the green leaf, pressed close, with a slice of white garlic and a scattering of black peppercorns.

With one bite, an adult hears the crunch of the threads of pork skin mixed into the meat. The bite holds all four flavors: sour, spicy, salty, and sweet. Some people eat it with rice noodles, some tuck it into a bánh mì sandwich, and others roll it in rice paper with fresh herbs.

When people in Lai Vung speak of the first hands to wrap nem here, they still name Nguyễn Thị Mặn, also known as Tư Mặn. Her home was in Tân Khánh hamlet. It belonged to Tân Thành commune, which is now part of Lai Vung commune. By their account, she came up with the dish and first made it with her own hands around 1960.

In one telling, she did not make nem to sell back then. She made it mostly to place on the ancestral altar on death anniversaries and at Tết, the Lunar New Year festival in Vietnam. She also gave it to relatives. In another telling, she often cooked for feasts around the area, and the dish was born from the very things she already had at hand.

People in the area tasted her nem, found it good, and came to ask her to teach them. The method passed from one pair of hands to the next. People carried nem to the Lai Vung market to sell. Little by little, making nem became the trade of many households around there.

In the old days, villagers put pork into a stone mortar, then raised the pestle and brought it down. They pounded on and on, stopping only when the meat was smooth and fine. They cut the pork skin small and mixed it into the meat with garlic, pepper, and chili. Then each of them lined every roll with a vông leaf, from the coral tree. They wrapped it in fresh banana leaf, taking care to make every roll even. Even the string for tying came from the banana plant. Once the rolls were wrapped, they were put away for a few days to ferment.

Today, grinders have taken the place of the stone mortar, and in many places machines also divide the meat into portions. Many households have switched the inner leaf to a star gooseberry leaf. Banana string has given way to nylon string, and some places add a thin layer of film inside the banana leaf.

A grinder can grind the meat, but it cannot choose it. The makers look for lean meat from the hind leg or the rump, where it is tender, with little sinew and little fat. Both meat and skin must be very fresh, and the grain of the meat must be supple. The skin comes from the body of the pig, so that it stays crisp. The skin of a breeding sow is tough and does not suit nem. They boil the skin until cooked, wash it well, and remove all the fat. Then they turn it into thin threads.

Then comes the mixing. For every eight parts of meat, the maker adds two parts of skin. The seasonings are salt and sugar, pepper and garlic, chili and fish sauce. How much of each goes in differs from one place to the next.

The wrapping, then as now, is done by hand. The maker wraps each roll, then winds the layer of banana leaf around the outside. Whether a roll tastes good, keeps long, and looks appealing depends partly on the hands that wrap it. How thickly or thinly the banana leaf is wound decides whether the nem turns sour early or late. Nem makers also believe the vông leaf inside helps the nem ferment faster.

People in the trade have a rhyme that goes: Roll by roll, roll by roll, whoever lacks the skill wraps them unevenly. On the woman's table, the rolls she has just wrapped sit square and perfectly even.

Once they leave the wrapper's hands, Lai Vung nem travel far. The first bunches appeared only at a few small markets. Buyers grew in number, and the nem followed the sellers to the district market, then on to the provincial market. Many people made their living selling nem, carrying bunch after bunch to bus stations and ferry landings. Some bunches rode the long-distance coaches all the way to Ho Chi Minh City. In this way, the leaf-wrapped nem spread across the whole country. And since 2023, the craft of making nem in Lai Vung has been listed as national intangible cultural heritage.

Nem is set out on the trays of food at weddings and death anniversaries. It is also a gift people bring one another at Tết. In the days before Tết, the hands of nem makers hardly rest. They wrap nem, then wind the leaves. They pack boxes, then tie bunches. Many places work day and night, turning out several times more nem than on ordinary days.

At last the woman reaches out and finds no leaf left. She closes the lid on the last box of nem. Her hands rest for a while. The leaf parcels she has just wrapped need only a few more days, until the sourness finds its own way in.