Lam rice has long been associated with the lives of people in the Northwest mountains as a familiar part of trips to the fields and forests. With only field sticky rice, fresh bamboo tubes and a small fire in the great forest, people have created a rustic but richly flavored mountain and forest dish.
The ancients said that during the working days in remote fields, the luggage they carried was usually only a little sticky rice, a knife and a match bag. Without pots and pans, they used bamboo tubes and bamboo tubes as cooking utensils.
The rice is washed, put in a tube with stream water and placed next to charcoal embers. When the outer shell is charred, it is also when the aroma of sticky rice blends with the smell of bamboo spreading throughout the mountains and forests.
From that simple cooking method, cơm lam has become a familiar dish for mountain people. Although life today has changed, cơm lam is still preserved as a memory of a time attached to nature and hard working days.
The ingredients for making bamboo rice are not elaborate, but to have a delicious tube of rice, you need a lot of experience. Rice is usually sticky and fragrant upland sticky rice, soaked before being put in bamboo or bamboo tubes.
The griller must control the heat evenly so that the rice is soft, not mushy or raw core. When peeling off the burnt outer layer, the ivory white rice appears chewy and fragrant, retaining the natural flavor of sticky rice.
In the Northwest, the Thai people are considered the community that has made cơm lam a part of traditional culinary culture. During Tet holidays, celebrating new rice or village worshiping ceremonies, cơm lam often appears in the feast.
In particular, five-color bamboo rice with white, blue, yellow, red, and purple colors created from forest leaves, flowers and natural fruits also carries the meaning of harmony between people and heaven and earth.
Today, cơm lam is not only available in the kitchen of stilt houses but has also become a familiar dish at highland tourist destinations. Along the roads to the Northwest, it is very easy to see tubes of cơm lam smoldering by the charcoal stove. Eating with sesame salt, pork floss or smoked meat, cơm lam brings a rustic and unforgettable flavor to many people.
