Pho Hien Longans

Night falls, and a flock of bats swoops toward a ripening longan tree. They circle a few times and fly off without a single fruit. People in Phố Hiến still tell this story: a woven cage stood around the tree, between the bats and the fragrant clusters of fruit. The longan is a small round fruit, a close relative of the lychee.

In the 17th century, Phố Hiến lay right on the left bank of the Red River. It sat on the waterway that ran from the sea up to the capital, Thăng Long, the city now called Hanoi. Trading boats from many lands called here. To go deep inland, every boat coming in from the sea had to pass this landing. Guard posts on the bank inspected the boats, both Vietnamese and foreign.

For a time, Japanese merchants on the wharf traded silver and copper for silk. Silver and copper came in by boat, and silk went out by boat. Chinese, Siamese, Dutch and English traders from lands far across the sea also found their way here. All along the wharf, the voices of local people mingled with accents from far away. Ashore lay crowded, cheerful streets, with Vạn market and Hiến market. There was also a craft street named Hàng Chén.

In that story, the longan tree stands in front of Hiến Pagoda. People call it the ancestor longan tree, and say it is several hundred years old. Some say it was planted when the communal house and the pagoda were built. Others say no one knows where it came from.

Each season when the fruit ripened, the townspeople say, longans from this tree were picked as offerings. They went to the Buddha, to the guardian spirit of the village, and up to the emperor. Folk tradition also has it that the fruit was meant for royalty, and few ordinary people ever got to taste it.

That leaves the cage from the night the bats came, and the question of who wove it.

One account says that when the tree began to bear fruit, the people of the pagoda wove a cage around it. Bats, rats and birds could not get in. The fruit was not eaten, and stayed clean for the offerings. Nhãn means longan, and lồng means cage. According to this account, that is where the name nhãn lồng comes from.

Another account says that when the longans ripened and grew fragrant, bats and birds came flocking. So the villagers cut bamboo and wove a huge cage over the whole tree. They also sent people to keep watch. In this second telling, the name nhãn lồng came from that bamboo cage.

The port did not stay lively forever. Over the years, along with many other changes, the riverbed silted up and the water moved away. The port grew quiet, but the silt of the Red River stayed behind and became fertile fields around the town.

The land along the Red River is now longan country. People still say longans have grown in this soil for about 300 years. Many also believe that today's nhãn lồng of Hưng Yên traces back to that ancestor tree.

Early one morning in August, a longan grower is already in the orchard, looking up at heavy branches. The orchard lies on the land of Hồng Châu, where Hiến Pagoda stands. The longans are now at their peak. The early crop has been ripe since mid-July, and the late crop must wait until September.

Before these round clusters formed, the grower pruned the branches and thinned the young fruit. He often repeats a saying growers pass along: one year for fruit, one year to repay the branches. In the old days, it meant a tree bore fruit one year and rested the next to grow new branches.

The grower and a few others begin to pick. Early sunlight slips through the leaves. From the edge of the orchard, all that shows is the canopy trembling. Then, one after another, deep golden clusters come down.

The grower peels a longan. The deep golden skin comes away to show clear white flesh. The flesh is thick and not watery. He bites into it, and it is crisp, sweet and fragrant. A small seed sits in the middle, and he picks it out and sets it aside.

This land also has an old variety with a very sweet-sounding name: nhãn đường phèn, or rock sugar longan. People say it was once the longan offered to the emperor. Today it is very rare, with only a few trees left.

By noon, the morning's longans must go to market, because they lose their freshness if they wait. Most of the orchard's fruit is sold fresh like this. The grower sets the slightly lesser fruit apart, to take out the flesh and dry it. From that flesh he will make long nhãn, dried longan.

In the afternoon, the grower sits with a few others around a basket of longans. Each holds a small coring tool, its tip sharp as a pen nib. They use it to free the flesh from the seed. He works slowly and carefully, because one slip and the tip can cut his hand. At the nhãn lồng festival held right in Phố Hiến, people even make a contest of this skill.

Once the flesh is free, the grower spreads it over woven racks. Long nhãn was once dried in the sun. Now he dries it in a charcoal kiln.

At dusk, he slides the racks into the kiln. On each one, the pieces of flesh lie close together. The charcoal glows red, and warmth fills the kiln. This batch will stay inside for about 15 hours. The clear white flesh slowly changes color. When it comes out, it will be glossy gold, firm and shrunken, and deeply fragrant.

People in Hưng Yên cook dried longan like this with lotus seeds. The dish is chè hạt sen long nhãn, familiar in many homes. It is a kind of chè, a Vietnamese sweet soup.

Night has fully fallen. In the kiln the charcoal still glows red, and the long nhãn has a whole long night ahead.