Compass Travel Vietnam
Kon Tum yellow ant salad: A famous specialty in the sunny and windy land of the Central Highlands
Weaver ant salad is made from “fortune-banned” in the Central Highlands, with only one season a year around the end of May – the beginning of June.
Hearing the name “golden ant salad” seems strange and attractive, but looking at the way people prepare it, many people will not dare to eat it. However, if you taste it once, surely diners will be attracted by the delicious, nutritious, and extremely special taste of this dish.
The Ro Mam people often use ant eggs to cook sour soup, mix salads, and stir-fry meat (Photo: Tran Hien)
The Ro Mam are a very small ethnic group in Vietnam, with nearly 160 households (about 460 people) living mainly in Le village, Mo Rai commune, Sa Thay district, Kon Tum province.
As an ancient ethnic group that has lived in the deep forest for a long time, the Ro Ma people have many very strange and unusual dishes that few people can enjoy. Ro Ma people often use yellow ants and ant eggs to cook sour soup, mix salads, stir-fry meat or make dipping sauces.
Weaver ant salad is made from “lucky heaven” (Photo: Tran Hien)
However, the most delicious and quintessential flavor is the yellow ant salad made from “lucky heaven”, only one season a year, around the end of May – the beginning of June. Around the residential area. There are many weaver ants living here, but according to the experience of the people here, good weaver ants must be young ants or have lots of eggs.
Weaver ant salad is one of the famous specialties of the vast and sunny land of the Central Highlands because of its delicious, strange and unique taste. Moreover, the attractiveness of weaver ant salad is not reflected in the external appearance.
The attractiveness of weaver ant salad is not shown in its appearance (Photo: mia)
In order to process the yellow ant salad, it needs to go through many sophisticated and meticulous stages. Wanting to keep the typical flavor of the fish salad, the Ro Ma people often choose stream fish with firm flesh, even and fresh scales. Thus, the dish will be sweet, chewy, natural aroma and not fishy.
As for the second ingredient, people will look for really big ant nests, a large volume of eggs because weaver ant eggs are very fragrant, eat again, process with stream fish for the sweet and fragrant taste of fish, and the richness of eggs. ant sour.
Stream fish filter the meat and then mince it, squeezing out the water to remove the fishy smell (Photo: mia)
According to the forest experience of the Ro Mam people, when they get a nest of weaver ants, they usually put under a pot of water, knock the ants out with the handle, then gently split them in half and pick up the ant eggs. Weaver ant eggs are usually the size of a grain of rice, milky white in color and mildly fragrant.
When selecting standard stream fish, clean it, filter the meat, then mince or pound it, squeeze out the water to remove the fishy smell. Similar to stream fish, the ant meat and ant eggs are also made finely and then dried in the sun to shrink.
Yellow ant salad rolled with forest leaves such as sesame buds, young mangoes, fig leaves (Photo: Pham Hoang)
The next stage is seasoning, mix fish with ants with salt, wild pepper, green chili, maybe add a little rice to increase the smell and remember to mix well by hand, leave for about 30 minutes. According to the ethnic language, people call the yellow ant salad fish Platter, and when mixed with rice, it is called Trot IagLia, which has both the sweet taste of fish, the sour taste of ants and the characteristic greasy taste of ant eggs.
It is not known when the yellow ant salad was born, but according to the village elders, the dish was passed down by his father. Over the years, weaver ant salad has become a specialty at any time. The Ro Mam people often make fish salad with yellow ants during Tet, an important holiday of the village or family to entertain guests. At present, the elderly people who are proficient in preparing this dish often teach the younger generation the experience and secrets to preserving the traditional dishes of their nation.
The dish has the sweet taste of fish, the sour taste of ants, the greasy taste of ant eggs (Photo: Capital Youth)
Enjoying golden ant salad wrapped with forest leaves such as sesame buds, young mangoes, fig leaves…, drinking ge wine (can wine) is one of the extremely unique culinary cultures of the Central Highlands ethnic people. The sweetness of stream fish mixed with the sour and greasy taste of ants, the spicy taste of chili pepper, and a little bit of bitterness of forest leaves give the ant egg salad a different aroma that cannot be mixed with any other dish. no fish salad.
Kon Tum yellow ant salad: A famous specialty in the sunny and windy land of the Central Highlands
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