Hemp vegetables of the highlanders
Compared to the ginseng of the highland people, the five-year-old vegetable (the people are familiar call hemp vegetable ) that the ethnic minorities in Sa Pa and Bac Ha still grow as a fence has been known by many people comes by the taste of a medicinal vegetable with good health effects.Recently, having the opportunity to work in the highlands of Sa Pa, I enjoyed a rustic meal of the ethnic minorities here, including hemp vegetables that people picked from the fence to stir-fry with dried meat kitchen attic. In the bitter cold of late autumn and early winter, the aroma of dried meat at the kitchen counter mixed with the fleshy taste of hemp has created an attractive culinary dish.
 |
| Eleutherococcus gracilistylus fries chickencoop |
The tops of hemp vegetables are often picked fresh by the highlanders from the fields to stir-fry with garlic, more luxuriously, they can be chopped and fried with chicken eggs or with horse meat. Like angelica stir-fried with horse meat, hemp vegetables are grown by people to eat. Many visitors to Sa Pa or Bac Ha after enjoying this vegetable dish are very interested because of the bitter, sweet and fragrant taste of the vegetable creating a very special flavor for the dish. People in the lowlands have ordered this dish when they know it, but because it is a green vegetable, it is difficult to transport it far away, so few people can buy it.
Talking to engineer Luong Van Hoang, Sa Pa Institute of Medicinal Materials (under the Ministry of Health), he said: Scheflera heptaphylla is a precious herb. The bark and young tops contain saponins. The Scheflera heptaphylla are very good for health, related to ginseng. The young tops can be used as vegetables, processed into simple dishes such as cooking fish soup, stir-fried with beef, while the old leaves and old branches can be boiled.
 |
| The Eleutherococcus gracilistylus is bought by many lowland tourists |
Many research documents take note, that the eleutherococcus gracilistylus is a medicinal plant of the ginseng family included in the list of widely used traditional medicine remedies, in the form of a shrub with thorny stems. The plant has many effects such as strong anti-oxidant, anti-aging, and fatigue, as a tonic to improve health, enhance memory, cure stomach diseases, low numbness. Some of the active ingredients in the eleutherococcus gracilistylus also have anti-cancer and anti-viral properties.
Particularly for people in the highlands, this is a "panacea", eating to have better sleep, simply processing it into a green vegetable dish in the daily menu also has a good effect on health. Some ethnic minority households in Bac Ha highland have been growing this "ginseng" vegetable variety in their home garden because of the "double benefit", both as a green vegetable and an additional income when tourists order it.
