From Hanoi to Chennai, the crunch of banana stem

The inner core of trees like banana and palm is used to create nutrientrich dishes in many food cultures across the world

- Raul Dias

Food memories and their domino effect on my thoughts always seem fascinating: Each link of the culinary chain trigger sights, smells, textures and tastes of a similar one in the past. This happened to me a few months ago as I sat down on a rickety plastic stool at a food stall in Hanoi's chaotic Dong Xuan Market for a mid-day snack. I soon learned that in Vietnam, the crunchy inner core of the banana tree stem is an essential component of the fresh-herbs-and-veggies plate that accompanies the utterly delicious northern crab-and-noodle soup called bun rieu cua.

INSIDE STORY

Biting into the toothsome, snow-white disks of the blanched banana stem took me back, not just to Butuan in the Philippines, where it is added to a chicken stew called binanihan, but also to the faded grandeur of Yangon's Rangoon Tea House.

It was here, in the summer of 2018, that I had my first taste of the country's uncrowned national dish of mohinga. Besides containing an entire kitchen cabinet's worth of ingredients like rice noodles, shredded cat fish, shrimp paste, the lemongrass and turmeric-redolent broth of this comforting fish noodle soup has chopped bits of banana stem for that crunch factor.