Some people quickly prepared flashlights, carried bamboo, and started a night trip through the forest. The small snail flood was as quiet as fog, starting to move out of the grotto, under the misty canopy and the rotten leaves, opening a short recovery season.
The lucky ones hide in stone
Hoa Binh stone snails, also known as mountain snails or medicinal snails, are endemic species that live in cracks, limestone caves and small streams in the forest. It is not easy to see them. This snail winters throughout the dry season, only appearing when there are first showers and humidity is large enough. At that time, they quietly leave the cave, cattle go to feed at night - slowly, almost invisible, if they do not have a pair of eyes and a flashlight strong enough.
This is a rare snail species: plansk shells are rotated at the level of coins, round trunks like coins, thick shells are dark brown, sometimes mixed with white rice. But what makes them valuable is not their appearance, but their eating habits: Stone snails mainly eat wild leaves, including many precious herbal leaves. Thanks to that, snail meat when eaten has a mild herbal smell, is crispy, and rich in mountain and forest flavor. The Thai and Muong people believe that the "end" of snails - the place containing the intestines, is the natural medicine bag because snails absorb forest tree essence.
According to experienced forest goers, stone snails are mainly distributed in mountainous districts such as Mai Chau, Tan Lac, Kim Boi, Lac Son, and part of Lac Thuy. These areas have limestone terrain, forest vegetation, high humidity - the ideal living environment for snails. In particular, the areas of Lac village, Chieng Chau (Mai Chau), Gia Mo forest (Tan Lac), or Cun Pheo forest, Tan Dan... are all considered by the locals as "hiding places for snails".
A ranger shared: The mountain goose often lives at an average altitude, near small streams or leachate streams, where there are many fallen leaves and shade. They cannot stand drought or pollution. The more the environment is regenerated, the more there are stone snails. Therefore, if the forest is degraded, the shade of medicinal plants is lost, the snails will gradually disappear.
As the people of Ren village say: "Every season, how many snails are caught, how much good is the rain in the forest that year". Because snails are not only food, but also an ecological sign of a healthy forest system.
sought-after specialties
In Lac village, where tourists sleep on the floor, eat lam rice, come to hear the sound of insects and the sound of insects, steamed steamed snails is almost "a ritual of greeting". Snails are boiled and steamed with ginger, lemongrass, lemon leaves, adding a few slices of peppers, just ten minutes to aroma. Guests tiptoe with small snails, dipping sauce lemon chili mixed with chocolate, startled because of the sweet, crispy sweetness, sometimes bitter posting - the taste of the forest, not mixed anywhere.
Thai people in Mai Chau, Muong people in Tan Lac, Kim Boi do not call stone snails as a dish. They called the "heavenly medicine". Unlike snails or stuffed snails to raise industrial, small stone snails, compact, intestinally eaten, not fishy but have a mild smell. Because snails eat forest leaves - from ginseng, guise leaves, wormwood to medicinal plants that only native speakers realize. Therefore, the indigenous people have the principle of immutability: "eat snails to eat the whole intestine", otherwise ... the fee of heaven. The bitter taste is the essence of the forest trees accumulated through hibernation, but the elderly jokingly "snails it brews in the abdomen".
No one knows exactly when the Muong people started eating stone snails. All I know is that every rainy season, when the rice has not yet been harvested, when the forest has just begun to wake up, people go to the forest to "pick up the benefits" and bring them back to improve their meals. From daily meals to pick-up trays, steamed stone snails, stir-fried betel leaves, or snail salad mixed with herbs are always present as a quiet pride.
Nowadays, Hoa Binh stone snails appear on the menu of specialty restaurants in Hoa Binh City, Kim Boi, or community tourism areas such as Lac village, Pom Coong village... A plate of steamed snails costs only a hundred thousand, but many tourists comment: "Warenessful as hill chicken, local pigs".
In a corner of a homestay kitchen in Chieng Chau, Ms. Ha - the stilt house owner laughed: "Foreign customers find it strange, Hanoi customers find it delicious, and locals find it... memorable. No rainy season, no snails, it's like seeing a piece of memory missing from a meal."
Therefore, snails are not just food. It is a core part of Muong and Thai meals, a spice of gatherings around wine trays, a sincere hometown gift that if anyone has ever eaten it, they will easily remember it for the rest of their life.
snail hunting - a source of income from the forest
When the thunderstorms stopped, groups of people - mostly women - bowed, carried flashlights, and walked through the forest all night. No loud explosion, no noisy hammer, only the bright light sweeps through each leaf carpet, each moist tree base. These are people who "hunt for stone snails", living by the gift of the forest before the harvest season.
Ms. Bui Thi Men (ren hamlet, Gia Mo, Tan Lac) said: "Sup out at night when it rains, slowly, clinging to rocks or cows under rotten leaves. Carefully checking the shell, it turned round and shiny brown. One night I walked for more than 3 hours and gained nearly 5 kg. In the early morning, each canon earns nearly 80,000 VND.
Snails are small but the price is not "light". At the beginning of the crop, traders are ready to pay 90,000 VND/kg, the bigger the snail, the cleaner, the higher the price. On average, every night, cleverly captured can collect 4 - 7kg. A snail season lasts 3-4 months, diligent people can earn 5 - 7 million/month, a small amount for many mountainous families.
In the highlands, where there is little employment and a fragile livelihood, stone snails are considered the "heaven" that feeds people. No need to invest, no need for fertilizer or feed, just need your eyes, forearms and flexible legs. Many households are also familiar with Facebook and Zalo to receive orders from below. One day, traders collected a whole number of scalebacks to send to Hanoi for passenger cars.
Therefore, stone snails have become a "specialty commodity" from a rustic dish. The small snails carry the expectation: Helping Muong and Thai people have more full meals; helping tourism workers have more products to attract customers; helping forest hunters have more joy after each rain.
But from here, a concern begins to form: As more people go hunting, will the forest still have enough snails to divide equally among all? When each snail season is a large-scale gathering of goods, how long will the road to hunting for "forest bulbs" become a livelihood?
Betting in the dark
"In the past, when catching stone snails, you only had to step out of the village, now you have to climb to the top, go a distance of a kilometre", Mr. Bui Van Chao, a person who has been "scooting snails" in Tan Lac for more than 20 years, wrote. "There are not as many snails as before. The less the less".
His words were not lamented. That is the fact that it is clearly visible on the forest of the villagers. When the snail becomes a specialty, the forest becomes a warehouse, and each rain is a aggressive collection. At one point, traders stood at the edge of the forest, waiting for people to bring snails to buy in weight. Even on social networks have appeared specialized groups to buy "whole mountain snails, unlimited quantity".
Since then, those who go fishing have not only picked up large snails but also collected small, immature snails. Some even used large-capacity lamps, flip rocks, and dig deep into forest leaves, disrupting the snail's habitat.
The consequences are gradually becoming clear. In many areas in Mai Chau and Tan Lac, people have to go further and deeper to find the snails. In some areas, we used to catch dozens of fish every night, now there are only a few fish in a handful.
Currently, stone snails have not been included in the list of species that need to be protected, nor have there been regulations on exploitation season, minimum snail size or no hunting areas. Although local authorities recognize the risk, they are almost only at the level of propaganda.
"The difficulty is that natural snails are scattered in the forest that no one has been able to raise, and no one has been able to count the number," admitted an officer of the Forest Protection Department. "If there is no good control, in a few years I may have to buy stone snails... to import as a specialty."
A small snail that used to be food for the rainy season has now become a rare dish in the forest. And as the heavenly gifts are fading away, the question is: What should we do so as not to lose that gift for just a short-term crop?
Every rainy season, when the first thunder of thunder came from the mountain, the villagers waited for the first snail. It is not just a piece of food but a signal: the forest is still strong, the sky is still there. But if today we are engrossed in the young snail, the whole snail has not been born, if each rain is a dredging ... then tomorrow, will anyone hear the sound of stone snails under the forest foliage?
Keeping the forest is keeping snails. Keeping snails is to keep a part of the memories of the Muong and Thai people, to keep the delicious dishes, to keep the entire quiet and sustainable livelihood of many houses at the foot of the mountain.
