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Exploring the past and future of Vietnamese
chocolate
Text and Images by James Pham
THE VIETNAMESE HAVE A
saying: Phi cua Troi, muoi doi chang co,
meaning “Waste what God gives you and
the next ten generations will go without.”
Likely no one has mastered the art of
multi-purposing quite like the humble
people of the Mekong Delta where
absolutely nothing goes to waste.
In a small riverside workshop just
outside of Vinh Long, a handsome older
woman uses a ladle made from a coconut
shell to pour rice flour batter over a
piece of cloth stretched over a steamer.
Her silvery hair is pulled back tight,
revealing flawless skin that belies her
seven decades. With practiced flicks of
the wrist, she deftly coaxes the delicate
rice flour crepe off in one piece, setting it
on a bamboo mat to dry.
Nearby, a family member uses
discarded rice husks to feed a fire. Over
it, she heats up sand in a large wok
into which she throws a handful of
unmilled rice. The kernels soon explode
like popcorn, erupting into a fireworks
display of fluffy white projectiles, ready
to be mixed with ginger and sweet rice
malt to make a tasty puffed rice treat.
In the Mekong Delta, rice is the
gift that keeps on giving. The stalks
of the rice plant are dried and used as
animal fodder, the husks as kindling,
the ash as fertilizer and the kernels as
food or cooked into malt. It’s the same
with coconuts, another staple here.
Tree trunks are carved into utensils,
palm leaves are woven into thatch, and
the juice, milk, flesh and shells of the
coconuts themselves have dozens more
uses.
While rice and coconuts are familiar
sights in the Delta, it’s another crop with
multiple uses that’s brought me here
today, one not typically associated with
Vietnam—cacao.
While most of the world grows the
hardier and higher-yielding variety
of cacao called Forastero, Vietnam’s
finer Trinitario strain is a hybrid of
Forastero with the more flavorful
Criollo. The green, yellow or red shells
can be shredded and used as substrate
for growing mushrooms and the tartly
sweet, almost mangosteen-like flesh can
be eaten or made into alcohol. However,
it’s the beans inside which command the
most value. After fermenting, drying and
roasting, the cocoa nibs are then ground
and pressed, yielding cocoa liquor (used
for making dark chocolate), cocoa butter
(used for white chocolate and cosmetics)
and cocoa powder.
Originally introduced by the French
in the late 19th century, the fate of
cacao in Vietnam has waxed and waned
over the last century or so. In colonial
times, cacao gave way to more profitable
crops like coffee and rubber. There was
renewed interest in the 80s, but potential
European and Russian buyers faded
amidst the tumult brought about by the
collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall
of the Berlin Wall. In the early 2000s,
NGOs, foreign development programs,
Hot chocolate at the Muoi Cuong Cacao Farm - Chocolate Tour by EXO TRAVEL
OI VIETNAM
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