Ben Thanh Market & Cai Rang Floating Market

[I wrote the following report for my Ancient Technology of Food class]

In Vietnam, I had the chance to both explore the Ben Thanh Market in Ho Chi Minh City and the Cai Rang Floating Market in the Mekong Delta. In Ben Thanh Market, past the aisles of shops selling every manner of durable good there are food stalls, and beyond that there are stands selling produce. In the back, there is a “wet market” where you can buy meat. The produce stands had every kind of vegetable and fruit neatly stacked on display. Some of the stalls had little display racks that look exactly like short supermarket aisles in the US. Everything was sold by weight, and often bundled for easy purchase. Nearby the produce stalls were bulk goods stalls that sold dried beans, flour, rice, and related items by weight out of open sacks. I counted at least 5 varieties of white rice, a sack of black rice, and a sack of brown rice at one stand. The most interesting section, however, was the “wet market” where organs were laid out on plates for purchase (including brain, kidney, liver, heart, intestines, stomach, and other organs I couldn’t identify). Chunks of muscle, of course, were also for sale. Nothing was refrigerated or on ice. There were also buckets of live seafood and fish in water for sale. If you wanted to buy a fish, the woman would gut it right there for you in front of your eyes.

On the bus ride out to the Mekong Delta, we passed acres of flooded rice paddies lining the highway. Though we didn’t see any water buffalo, presumably because this wasn’t a time of year when their labor is required, we were told that one of the most common ways for children to earn a little pocket money is by watching water buffalo after school and during their vacations. We visited a farm in the delta and got to see women weeding plots with small hand tools. We also saw a man chest deep in the river, harvesting something that looked like watercress. The produce is placed in baskets that are hung one on each end of a pole, which is carried over the shoulder to small motor-powered watercraft (like canoes) to be taken to market. As we drove up the river we passed many such vessels, mostly transporting fruit (especially lychee and logan); there were also some transporting pineapples and herbs. We got to the floating market early, at 8 am, and observed locals buying and selling produce. The floating market is located at the juncture of seven canals, and is composed of a collection of boats anchored near one another. Most boats only sell one item, though I saw some larger vessels selling two or three types of vegetables. Every boat advertises what it is selling by securing a sample to a long bamboo rod that is tied like a flagpole to the boat. There were pineapple boats and potato boats, watermelon boats and orange boats. I noticed a proliferation of tubers (sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, radishes, turnips, and beets); there was also a lot of fruit. Noticeably lacking was rice. There was a grocery boat that sold amenities like salt and sugar, but residents must obtain their rice in some other fashion. As we made our way back, we also observed some fishermen taking crabs out of a trap in the river.

Both of these situations show that in Vietnam the markets are still closely tied to the consumer. There are very few intermediary steps between the farmer and the consumer – particularly in the delta, where food goes is sold directly by the farmer to the consumer. For urban consumers, trade lines must be relatively efficient, and new product is delivered daily; otherwise, raw meat could not be kept unrefrigerated and live animals could not be sold. Presumably, meat is bought fresh and consumed on the same day. All parts of the animal are used, including all the internal organs & hooves we saw for sale; they are not wasteful.

The importance of the ocean as a source of seafood was highlighted by the abundance of live crabs, mussels, squid, and other animals we saw in the wet market, and their presence in many local dishes. Concerning the variety of produce, I noticed many tubers (sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, radishes, turnips, carrots, and beets) for sale. However, I did not find that many tubers in Vietnamese cuisine. There were some pickled turnips and carrots, and I tried some sweet potato chips, but otherwise they were curiously absent. Especially striking is the lack of potato in food, when I saw many boatloads of potatoes in the market. There was also a proliferation of fruit: watermelon, pineapple, oranges, lychee, logan, durian, mango, dragonfruit, and others I did not recognize. The availability of fresh fruit is evident in the diet: fresh fruit juices are relatively inexpensive and easy to obtain, and fruit is served with every meal. Fruits have also been worked into savory dishes, such as pineapple in sour soup and winter melon soup. Finally, rice continues to be an important part of Vietnamese diet as well as a major export, as shown by the miles of rice paddies and the abundance of rice varieties available at the Ben Thanh Market.