Mam tom cha Mắm tôm chà
Gò Công’s pounded shrimp paste, eaten with bún, boiled pork, unripe banana, sour starfruit, cucumber, and herbs. Mixed into a dip, it should balance sour, sweet, hot, and salty.
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The paste followed Empress Từ Dụ to the Huế court nearly 200 years before 27 Aug 2014.
Why it matters
Gò Công had about a dozen workshops in 2014, each with its own family method.
Texture
A good jar keeps for a year.
Taste
The dip should balance sour, sweet, hot, and salty, with a little vinegar to soften the smell. The greens are mint, bean sprouts, garlic chives, perilla, lettuce, cucumber, unripe banana, and green starfruit.
How to enjoy it
Families clean live tôm đất without losing the roe, soak it in rượu nếp for about 20 minutes, pound it with garlic, chili, and salt, ferment it for about a week, then sieve it and sun-dry it for about 20 days.
Eat it with bún and boiled pork, or mix it with vinegar, lime, sugar, garlic, and chili as the dip for pork belly rolled in rice paper. Plain, it goes with white rice, sour fish soup with tamarind leaves, or green mango and hog plum.
Where to try it
Buy it in Gò Công. It is not a Mỹ Tho stall.