Nowadays, Sapa people call this kind of pork is piglets. Going to the market, carry the heavy vegetables in the hands and the piglet can be clamped under the arms. Each of the piglets weighs about 4 to 5 kg, which is smaller than the dog. People in the remote village bring piglets to the market by tying its legs to a bamboo pipe, lay it crosswise on the papoose; the piglet is shorter than the carrier’s breadth of shoulder. Not long ago, this type of pork was almost wiped out because it couldn’t be sold and no one wanted to feed it anymore. All of a sudden, piglets are now promoted and become a specialty of Sapa which is admired by many visitors.
When the grilled pork is praised, it must be accepted that whatever dish has been assessed by gastronomic people are all worth-trying. Muong pigs in Sapa are bred in the edge of forests and eat weeds and bamboo rats to survive. All around the year, they do not get bigger but one advantage is that it doesn’t cost corn, manioc and efforts. If visitors want to buy piglets, just go to the edge of forests and take whichever piglets that they can catch. Strangely, the big and small piglets are at the same price. The owner says that: when the customer comes next time, the small ones will have become the big ones, so small and big ones are not different . The cold clouds overflow surrounding the fired stove and bring with them the scent of forests at night.Carried under arm in Sapa1Formerly, when the forests were everywhere, people ate piglets around the year. When they knew to breed, the domestic pigs were appreciated and seen as a specialty and only the poor had to eat wild boars. The domestic pigs in Sapa in the old days were undersized because even the people also did not have enough corn and manioc to eat and so, the pigs themselves had to find weeds and bugs to eat, nearly the same as the wild boar and only when being too starved that people thought of the pigs. Anyway, there must be something rare and precious to sip and in the current situation, Sapa has thought of the remained undersized pigs and has quickly contributed to the natural cuisine culture with a specialty which is with strong local identity: Muong piglets left unbridled in the cold temperate forests at the altitude of more than 2000 above the sea level! The piglets which are truly left unbridled in forests is now rare because nowadays, not many villages are situated near the forests and near the forests at the high altitude is much rarer. With those standards, perhaps the specialty of Muong piglets in Sapa is more difficult to find than the wild boars. This dish can be called wild pork but it is not wild pork. In the pieces of meat, we can perceive the taste of wild pork without being accused of killing wild animals is really wonderful. However, perhaps only when sitting in the middle of clouds and mountain in Sapa, next to the stove and a bottle of corn wine with friends that we can see all the essence of forests accumulated in this dish.
