The Double-Circle Strawberry — Red Wheeling and Dealing After Tết

The last day of Tết, the Lunar New Year. The streets of Ho Chi Minh City are so quiet it's almost anticlimactic. It's as if the whole city has been reset for a moment. With a trip coming up, I'd been clearing out the fridge, so honestly, there's no food. I still have frozen vegetables and meat, but none of the fresh vegetables I usually keep on hand. Half-hopeful, I head out to the morning market. Stalls that would normally line up so densely they spill out into the walkways are, at this time of year, all but deserted. During Tết, I dropped by the convenience stores and supermarkets too, but the shelves were spectacularly bare. An emptiness that was almost refreshing. It really shows just how seriously everyone stocks up—and how seriously they take their rest. At that market, there were people who had come looking for ingredients just like me. About 40% of the usual crowd. Thinking that I'd count myself lucky just to find a modest amount of vegetables, I was peering around the stalls when, just a little ways ahead, I spotted a crowd of people.

A sale of some kind? As I was drawn toward it—there it was, packed full of strawberries! A rare sight: a strawberry truck. In Vietnam, strawberries are a luxury item. A fruit you splurge on for guests. They're gift-quality goods. It was the first time I'd ever seen a discount truck come to the everyday market. Maybe leftovers from before the Lunar New Year? Even so, that's fine—once it arrives by truck, you just can't help getting your hopes up. Without missing a beat, I checked the price. Handwritten letters on the lid of a styrofoam box.

1kg = 10K VND? ……Huh? 60 yen? Thinking "isn't that way too cheap?", I take a bag from the shopkeeper and immediately open it up. Which ones should I go for? I carefully pick through the strawberries piled up on the bed of the truck. Lucky — there are lots of nice-looking strawberries. As the crowd grows, the shopkeeper keeps bringing out basket after basket of strawberries. The strawberries in the baskets are wrapped in layers upon layers of leafy greens like cabbage leaves, like a futon, and the contrast of red and green is adorable. It looks a bit like an art flower arrangement. The baskets are handled roughly, flipped upside down and dumped out, yet thanks to those leaf futons the strawberries can tumble and roll around and still be fine. It's rough, and yet it makes perfect sense. The market is always clever in ways like this. The leaf futons are swiftly peeled away, and people swarm around the now-bare strawberries. What I noticed here was… The ones Vietnamese people pick are large, firm, and a slightly young red. Rather than an overripe deep crimson, a greenish red is more popular. Even if the shape is a bit off, what matters is that they're big and firm. It's almost the complete opposite of Japanese tastes, isn't it? For Japanese people, strawberries are the star of the shortcake. Small, bright red, and ideally fully ripe. Sweet, and delicious even eaten just as they are — that's the ideal. In other words, I'm busily picking up the very strawberries that Vietnamese people sort out and reject.

It's my job to wait downstream at the somen noodle slide and catch the noodles that come flowing all the way to the end. Let's just say that good things come to those who take the leftovers. The woman next to me, looking a little proud, stuffs the bag full and hands it to the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper weighs the strawberries, hands them over, and says, "There you go~ 2 kilos, that'll be 200KVND." She freezes. The other customers who'd been filling their bags with strawberries also stop for a moment. And of course, so do I. Huh, but the sign said 10KVND...? Looking really closely, the zero was a double circle. 1◎KVND.

Ah, so that's what it was. Hey, hey, hey, don't stack it up like that~~~. Write the two zeros lined up neatly next to it, would you, mister~. I grumble a little quip inside my heart. The shopkeeper grins, not the least bit sheepish. I see. He's seen right through me — the fact that for even a split second I thought "maybe it's cheap." I've been outmaneuvered by a schemer. But I'm not angry. 1kg = 100 KVND (about 600 yen). Even so, it's plenty cheap. The woman next to me pays 200 KVND with a wry smile too. The atmosphere of the market stays unbroken. You, my friend, know your stuff. With a slightly calmer hand than before, I pick out the ripe reds all over again. 600g of bright red strawberries.

Today, I'll make strawberry jam

The room filled with the sweet-tart aroma of strawberries