Every year, in September and October of the lunar calendar, after the intense rains, the southern monsoon season gradually ceases to give the sky and sky to the hustle and bustling tops of the East Sea, blowing back, signaling the sowing season. And the end is coming, the harvest season is full of people. Like the people across the Southwestern provinces, Tra Vinh Khmer people bustle into the Ok Om Bok festival season.
Talking about Ok Om Bok Tra Vinh, we cannot help but mention the dish of nuggets to purify the passionate taste and the sparkling wind lights in the magical moonlit night sky. Also a ethnic group of Southeast Asian wet rice agriculture, the Khmer put their faith quite fully in the traditional beliefs of their nation. The grains of sticky rice in the beginning of the new season have just smelled the milk of the sky and are elegantly made into nuggets by the elegant boys and girls, thanks to the light of the wind-lamp rising to the gods of the Moon, the Earth and the Water. present farmers' gratitude for a bumper crop. Not only offered to the gods, the Khmer elders also took hold of the nuggets to hold them in big puffs and put them in the children's mouth as a blessing, pray for long-lasting satiety. It is known that, for the Khmer, nuggets have become mascots, both an attractive dish at the beginning of the season, both are offerings to gods. Over time, the Khmer people in Tra Vinh also set foot in many countries around the world and everywhere there is a full moonlight, everywhere they can make a wind lamp but just because they can't find a place to hold nuggets, they have to make an appointment. Each other goes to Full Moon in October, the floods return to their homeland to enjoy Ok Om Bok season.

So, since time immemorial, in the Ok Om Bok season, all the Khmer squirrel trees in Tra Vinh bustled with the beat of the nuggets, all night long. Glutinous rice glutinous rice must be sticky in the beginning of next season, but still "young", to retain some milk at the top of sticky rice. Glutinous rice after harvest is exposed to light sunlight in the morning and then dried, then the Khmer girls put it in a pot of roasted earth on a straw fire until it is scorched with rice husks, emitting a slight aroma. The small, lovely, small bowl of mortar contained more than a liter of roasted sticky rice, because two boys holding pestle "stabbed" in a double beat and a girl sat while keeping the sticky rice from coming out of the mortar while keeping watch for the rice. It's really flat and even. The action of crushing rice crackers, which is actually "stabbing", reminds us of the rhythmic image - the real life in the ancient traditional beliefs of the peoples of the wet rice civilization and the romantic moonlit nights that became a dating opportunity for many men Khmer women should be wedded to their husbands and wives. The beats of baseball to clean up the seasons all over the town are also a symbol of prosperity and happiness to the fire in every house.

From being a seasonal dish, as an offering to the gods of the Khmer, nuggets gradually become popular and used by the ethnic communities in Tra Vinh. Flushed to buy, housewives ready to miscarried clean, then gently sprinkle a layer of coconut water to soften nuggets, then mix sugar and grated coconut (preferably tanned coconut). Coconut mix is ​​a simple dish, easy to prepare but delicious and attractive. Over the past decade, nuggets are classified as specialty products of Tra Vinh land, present year-round in the market, meeting the needs of consumers as well as the needs of giving gifts to each other. Even in neighboring provinces and Ho Chi Minh City, Tra Vinh flat nuggets are also sold as a "branded" commodity.

 Although rice crumb does not require high technical skills, when it goes into professional production, the people of Ba So trade village also have some improvements. Most noteworthy is the improvement of the mortar and pestle. The old mortar with a funnel-shaped concave was replaced by a circular cloth bag about 20 cm in diameter, about 15 cm deep, the mouth and bottom fixed by two iron frames, placed on a fixed flat cylinder. . The "stabbed" pair was replaced with the "retired" pair and the surface was cut flat. In the manipulation, the girl sat just shaking gently and evenly the cloth bag in rhythm that the two boys stood pounding constantly, so that the sticky ingredients gathered, not splashed out. The flattened real baseball regularly on the sole is also very flat, making the cereal flattened very evenly, looks nice, has fewer waste products and the productivity is much higher than the traditional mortar - pestle.

Come to the peaceful little squirrel Ba So, go under the bamboo groves, the ancient cool oil fields all year round, fluttering in the ears of nuggets from the early morning to the sunset. There, there are hard-working Khmer girls sitting by the fire of straw straws blushing, cheeks blushing, there are Khmer boys, all beaten to beat the nuggets, with the muscles rolled up under the copper skin. foul. Still beating the beat, still the straw fire reminiscent of the traditional beliefs of his father, the Khmer Ba So are working hard to overcome poverty with hard and sweaty sweat.

Picking up a handful of nuggets to mix coconut into your mouth, listening to the sweetness of the sugar, sticky rice, and the passionate taste of the earth, the sky and the salty sweat of the home workers. .