Braised Fish - A Poem
My effort to claim back the meaning of our beloved food
I have a problem with eating Westernized Vietnamese food. They are catered to customers that are too busy to care about why some food is cooked in a certain way. Some places cooked the stew pork in a hurry, without letting the marinating sauce absorb into the pieces of meat. Some foreign customers wrote harsh reviews that the restaurant didn’t cook the beef right when they ordered phở tái, which means rare beef noodles. Some restaurant is brave enough to respond and explain what rare beef noodles mean, like this one in Iowa. However, to satisfy the narrow-minded and busy customers, many chefs compromised. They cook the meat to death. Or they make something not from their hearts anymore to stay afloat in many international and narrow-minded communities.
I decided to write some poems on the food that nurtures my love for my surrounding places. Here is the first one, both in Vietnamese and English.
I don't translate them from each other. I write them in different feels of the two languages.
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Cá kho
Cá không ăn muối cá ươn
Con ăn hết mùa cá cha đơm
Mồ hôi cha rỏ vào mắt ngược
Mi không chớp trân trối nhìn con
và rơi xuống cầu ao xương rục
Đuôi cá vẫy vùng ngoài lặng thing
Cơn đói lòng thịt mủn tan trong lưỡi
Môi cá ngáp, lời trối hóc xương
Máu cá chảy ngoài sông ngã bảy
Con đi đến trời không đói nữa
Không sông, không cá, không có cha
Nước mắt không cay ớt đỏ ghiền
Ngực rỗng bời bời sôi thầm lặng
Con mơ ngày hóc xương cá mặn
Thức kho mải miết ước quay về
Mắm rát, tiêu cay, ớt đỏ, tim hiền
Mang cá hổn hển, bụng
Miệng cá ứ đầy muối mặn cha thương
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Braised Fish
Unsalted fish turns rotten fish
I have eaten the fish season you trapped
Your sweat drips into glowering eyes
Unclosed eyelids glare at my hunger
and drop into the rotten river basin
The fishtail flap
Starving rice broken flesh dissolve
my tongue - the fish chokes on
his own bones, his blood satiates
The river dries its belly
No water, no fish, no - You
My tears wither away the red chili salt
My chest writhes in boiling water
Sweetened steam soaks our home roof
Briny sauce, blistering pepper,
Throbbing heart, panting gills
The fish mouth gaped in your beloving salt.
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Photo by Jakub Kapusnak on Unsplash