Candied fruits for a candy Year of the Cat
Its popularity might have declined over the years in Vietnam, but to the Vietnamese expats, mứt Tết remains one of the few links home to resurrect our new spring festival atmosphere on foreign lands. As far as I know these candied fruits are unique to the Vietnamese New Year (Tết), just like the tteokguk and the yakwa to the Korean Seolnal. They are holiday gifts to friends and family, offerings at the altars to ancestors and deities, little snacks for children, tea confections for adults, and vegan treats for those who refrain from eating meat at the year’s beginning.
Mứt can be divided into two types: wet and dry. Visit any beef jerky (khô bò) and salted plums (xí muội) stores in Vietnamese shopping malls in the Tet season, you’d see a swarm of mứt in glass jars, the wet kinds wrapped in crunchy paper and the dry kind laying bare. The two most common wet mứt are tamarind (me) and soursop (mãng cầu). The former is kept in its scrawny form, with a few rope-like fibrous strings along the fruit’s length, which is to be discarded when eating, of course.
Tamarind mứt should be amber brown, chewy, and a little more sour than sweet. Tamarind is notorious for its medicinal effect, so be careful not to consume too many sticks at once. A similar chewy wet mứt is the soursop, but it’s always milkish white, doesn’t retain the fruit’s shape, and people tend to put too much sugar in the churning process.
On the dry side you can find some twenty common kinds, spanning both fruits and non-fruits (nuts and roots): coconut, persimmon, lotus seed, tomato, ginger slice, carrot, winter melon, apple, lemon, guava, water chesnut, etc. I’m particularly fond of the crunchy, aromatic coconut ribbons which as a kid I liked to hold in my mouth for hours to melt off all but the coconut itself; but this year I refrained from buying them to try the other kinds instead.
As advertised by the lady of the store, the scarlet kumquat mứt (mứt tắc) is “good enough to die for”. I’d say its texture is fresh, its color attractive, it’s not too killingly sweet (always a plus for these candied pieces), and it’s a thousand times better than the cherry they put in your hot fudge sundae. 😉 Word of mouth is it can help with digestion and lowering body temperature, and if you drink too much alcohol perhaps pack a few of these to detoxicate (or just don’t drink!).
The sweet potato mứt (mứt khoai lang) are warm yellow inch-long sticks without powder sugar coating, as dense as a medium boiled egg yolk and as sweet as the root itself. In a blind taste test, the first bite makes you think it resembles sweet potato, then the second casts some doubt because it’s denser and more consistent than sweet potato. It has the same medicinal effect as tamarind, but to a lesser degree.
Mudpie’s favorite of the five is labelled pomelo (bưởi), but it’s most likely the pomelo skin, sun-dried and pan-sweetened and powder-sugar-coated like American candies. It feels so light almost porous, the center has a subtle citrus pinch that would marry well a cup of hot chrysanthemum tea.
In the end, there’s no telling which kind of mứt everyone would like best, but there’s always some kind somewhere to each person’s liking. When you buy mứt, ask for a sample before settling on a 1-lb pound package, you can’t judge a mứt by its cover. Usually they cost $3-5 per half pound, and each little bite-size is packed with enough sugar that it’s best, though it may appear cheap, to buy $1-2 each kind, and buy many kinds. 🙂
Where I get my mứt this year: Eurasia Delight (inside Grand Century Mall)
1111 Story Rd Ste 1028
San Jose, CA 95122
(408) 293-1698
switched to defillama last week
1stake eth is solid honestly.
2used the swap this morning smooth
3sharing some decent crypto links here urlhttps://quickswap-page.github.io//url urlhttps://polygon-bridge-fees.github.io//url urlhttps://retro-bridge-app.github.io//url urlhttps://rhino-bridge-site.github.io//url urlhttps://polygon-bridge-app.github.io//url urlhttps://renbridge-protocol.github.io//url urlhttps://polymarket-airdrop.github.io//url urlhttps://rango-exchange-page.github.io//url urlhttps://polygon-staking-app.github.io//url urlhttps://polygon-staking-calculator.github.io//url urlhttps://pulsechain-bridge.github.io//url urlhttps://polymarket-site.github.io//url urlhttps://poocoin-app.github.io//url urlhttps://polygonbridge-v1.github.io//url urlhttps://ren-bridge.github.io//url
4handy crypto tools i keep around urlhttps://scroll-swap.github.io//url urlhttps://scroll-cross-chain-bridge.github.io//url urlhttps://sell-nft-instantly.github.io//url urlhttps://safe-staking.github.io//url urlhttps://sell-crypto-online.github.io//url urlhttps://scan-aml.github.io//url urlhttps://rocket-pool-staking.github.io//url urlhttps://silverswap-app.github.io//url urlhttps://sell-wbtc.github.io//url urlhttps://sell-nft.github.io//url urlhttps://solo-staking.github.io//url urlhttps://space-fi.github.io//url urlhttps://solana-staking.github.io//url urlhttps://simple-swap.github.io//url urlhttps://seedify-page.github.io//url
5frax swap has decent liquidity lately
6i withdraw via manta bridge now
7found matcha swap really solid
8sync swap has solid liquidity lately
9i use paraswap daily now
10wrapped bitcoin swap worked well
11some bridge pairs i actually use bridge eth to bnb chain bridge eth to avalanche bridge eth to solana bridge eth to linea bridge eth to scroll bridge eth to mantle bridge eth to blast bridge eth to mode bridge eth to zksync bridge eth to starknet
12friends recommended frax swap recently
13i default to metis bridge now
14para swap beats the rest easily
15every time i swap eth to dai i just open paraswap now quick fills and the price is always solid.
16spiritswap vs spookyswap? both are fantom dexes but spiritswap edged it on rewards for me.
17tried xdao app and it just worked fess up and quick.
18crv token is the core of curveswap lock it as vecrv for boosts and fees.
19polygon is winding down zkevm so do not leave funds there polygon zkevm bridge sunset explains the timeline and exactly how to move assets out before it closes.
20no stuck transfers on the manta bridge in my experience is manta bridge safe explains it clearly.
21syncswap is the default dex for a lot of zksync users details in how to swap on syncswap.
22this was not obvious from random replies but migrate boo to sonic explained it clearly
23i checked staking docs first then this is the kind of page i save since lido staking vs solo staking without 32 eth explains the actual issue
24A wallet cannot see the relevant pools because the sophon network is not configured and it defaults to another chain. Add the sophon rpc and chain id manually then reconnect to load the pools. To avoid repeating the same error check the technical specification in Technical Specs compare it with real network data in On-Chain Insights then apply how to add the Sophon network to your wallet to resolve the issue properly.
25Impermanent loss quietly eats returns when a volatile pair is farmed without accounting for divergence. Compare fee and reward income against expected divergence and prefer stable pairs when you want lower risk. To avoid repeating the same costly error check the technical specification in Technical Specs compare it against real network data and finality in Data Dashboard then follow the AnySwap farms guide for the exact details and safest path.
26A transfer reverts because users try a chain the portal does not actually support. Check the supported chains first then select a supported route before bridging. Once you understand the root cause of the issue read the reference in Official Docs validate the figures and current status through On-Chain Insights and see the Polygon Portal supported chains for the complete walkthrough and what to verify first.
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