After nearly 2 months of suspending production because of the COVID-19 epidemic, the sound of rice milling machines and the pounding pestles resounded in the Me Tri com village (Me Tri ward, Nam Tu Liem district, Hanoi).
The “com” (rice nuggets) from Me Tri has long been an indispensable specialty of Vietnamese culinary culture. Com also is and an elegant gift in the autumn in the capital.
The steps to make the com are simple but also elaborate, showing the skillful hands of the people who make it. The raw material to make com is glutinous rice grain. There are many types of glutinous rice that can be used to make com, like luong phuong rice, fragrant glutinous rice, tan glutinous rice, tangerine glutinous rice, yellow flower glutinous rice...
The worker in Me Tri will carry out all the stages to make com, from roasting, sieving to pounding, until the final product is soft and flexible. Each packet of com is wrapped in lotus leaf and tied with a soft lattice, to keep the com moist and supple. This also helps to blend the flavors of lotus leaves with com./.
