Tra River Goby with Pepper

The clay trách is hungry.

Its belly is empty, dry and cold, without a single drop of fish sauce yet. A trách is a pot of fired clay. This one is waiting for fish, living fish just up from the Trà Khúc River. Until the fish come home, no fire will be lit.

Out on the river, the sky is still dim. On the middle stretch of the Trà, markers of bamboo and reed stand up out of the current. Beside each marker, a bamboo tube lies hidden underwater. River people set the tubes in the afternoon and lift them early the next morning. The marker keeps watch, so the man lifting the tubes can find the right spot, and passing boats can see it.

Each tube is a length of dry bamboo. The maker knocks through the joints inside, so both ends stand open. A stake driven through its middle holds it still under the water. A newly made tube still smells strongly of bamboo, and the gobies refuse to go in. It must lie in the river for many days, until moss grows over it and the smell fades. Only then do the fish come.

To a goby, the bamboo tube is a shelter. Inside it, the fish can hide from the current, find food, and find each other. In the spawning season, gobies often live in pairs, and sometimes one tube holds several.

At dawn, the man reaches a marker. He comes very quietly, so the fish inside will not take fright. He closes both ends of the tube with his hands, lifts it, and stands it upright. If there are fish inside, he hears a soft ro ro, ro ro, rising from the hollow bamboo.

Some tubes hold no fish at all. Some hold one. Some hold a few.

Beside him floats a woven bamboo basket, tied to a cord looped around his waist. People along the river call it a vịt. He tips the mouth of the tube and pours the fish into it. The bottom of the vịt sits under the water, so the fish stay alive and flicking. Only living fish will do for the trách at home. Wherever he goes, the vịt quietly follows.

A little farther off, someone swims against the current so the water stays clear, dives down beside a tube, then comes up and gives it a gentle shake. When a fish brushes a hand, the diver guides the end of the tube into the mouth of the vịt. Diving for the tubes like this is work for adults.

The Trà Khúc River has many good fish: the thài bai, the mullet and the hanh. First among them is the goby. The goby of the Trà has fine scales and short, slender fins. It has few bones and plenty of flesh, firm and fragrant.

Men like him sort the gobies into several kinds. The bống găm is big, from the size of a toe up to the size of a flying fish. It lives in holes along the bank, and it is best grilled over charcoal. The bống nhọn, also called bống kèn, is as small as the tip of a chopstick, with a sharp, pointed head. People steam it and eat it with bánh tráng mè, a rice cracker with sesame. The bống dừa has a big head, a dark brown body and many bones. Braised with pepper, it is only ordinary.

For braising with pepper, the best is the bống cát, the sand goby. It is not as big as the bống găm, nor as small as the bống nhọn. It has a small head, a round, plump body and fine scales, pale yellow shading into glossy gold. The clay trách at home waits only for the bống cát.

He reaches another marker, closes both ends of the tube, and stands it up. Ro ro, ro ro. His tubes lie in the middle stretch of the river, where the gobies taste best. Upstream toward the source, the water runs hard and food is scarce, so the fish are thin and tough. Downstream near the sea, the water turns salty, and the fish are bony and lose their own flavor. In the middle stretch, the water runs perfectly clear, and the gobies bury themselves under white sand.

The fish are best in roe season, when thunderstorms often break over the headwaters in the Trường Sơn mountains. Then the river runs calm and full of tiny morsels of food. The fish grow round and fat, their bellies swollen with roe, just the fish the trách is waiting for.

Many rivers have gobies. There is even a goby in a fairy tale, with its familiar call, bống bống bang bang. But for cá bống kho tiêu, gobies braised with pepper, people always name the Trà Khúc River.

People in the region have a saying that sounds almost like a song. It goes: Sugarcane birds from Xuân Phổ. Mirror candy from Thu Xà. Gobies from the Trà River. Malt syrup from Mộ Đức. The people of Quảng Ngãi have been proud of this fish for a very long time.

Tubes like his catch fewer fish now than before. Quảng Ngãi province has helped the sand goby spawn and hatch a great many young fish. It has released those young fish back into the Trà, hoping the river will fill with fish again.

As the sun climbs, the floating baskets follow the men back to shore. By custom on the Trà, the men see to the tubes and the women see to the cooking. At the landing, he hands the fish to a woman of the house. The fish reach home still fresh and lively.

She takes a bamboo thorn and deftly picks out the thin dark gut from the belly of each fish. Then she drops the fish into a fired-clay bowl with a glaze the color of eel skin. She sprinkles on a little white salt and tosses them until the slime is gone, then rinses them once more.

Now, at last, the trách gets its meal. She lays the fish inside it and pours in fish sauce. When the fish sauce just covers them, she leaves them be for a while, so the flesh can soak it up. It is as if each fish were gulping the fish sauce in, mouthful by mouthful.

She has already pounded the pepper fine. The color for the pot comes from gấc oil, or from cane sugar cooked down to a dark caramel, never from food dye. First she scatters the pepper and pours the color into the trách. She saves the peanut oil, fried fragrant with củ nén bulbs, to pour in at the end.

She lights the fire, just a low, gentle flame, and sets the trách on top. Inside, the fish slowly curl. They curl and curl, until each one bends like the back of a shrimp. Then she lowers the flame and gently shakes the trách to even it out. When the braising is done, she puts out the fire and lets the fish rest, so the flesh firms up, dense and fragrant.

The trách slowly cools. Over each fish lies a dark, salty coat, from the tip of the nose to the end of the tail fin. The trách is full now, and it smells wonderful.

An old Quảng Ngãi folk verse speaks of a man far from home. It goes: I go away, and I miss my home. I miss the goby of the Trà River, braised with pepper.

The rice is just done too, cooked from the third-month crop and stretched with a little dried sweet potato. Beside it sits a plate of boiled water spinach, bright green. The grown-ups find the braised goby firm and fragrant, a little peppery, a little salty. A fish full of roe is richer still. Each bite of water spinach is dipped into the braising liquid in the trách.

The children of the house eat rice with water spinach dipped in the braising liquid, and bits of fish the grown-ups have picked clean of every bone. For people on both banks of the Trà, a meal like this is how they treat an honored guest, with respect and with affection.

After the meal, a few fish are left in the trách. The grown-ups mash them, pick out every tiny bone, and stir them into a pot of water spinach soup. The soup turns deeply sweet. The clay trách sits empty, hungry again.

Somewhere very far away, the man in the folk verse still misses the goby of the Trà River braised with pepper, and the clay trách from the days when it was full.