🍭 A Taste of Childhood – Vietnamese Snacks That Grew Up With Us

🍭 A Taste of Childhood – Vietnamese Snacks That Grew Up With Us

Some flavors don’t just remind us of childhood —
they are our childhood.

In Vietnam, before we ever learned to pronounce the word "snack,"
we already knew what joy tasted like.

It tasted like sticky fingers from kẹo kéo, the chew of kẹo dừa tucked in school uniform pockets, and the crunch of bánh phồng tôm fried until golden, crackling under sunlight.

🧺 Snacks That Found Us, Not the Other Way Around
I never asked for snacks as a child.
I didn’t need to.

They found me — at the school gate, at the front yard after rain, at the market where my mother haggled over vegetables while I stood hypnotized by a tin of colorful kẹo mè xửng.

When my husband and I talk about childhood, it's funny — we grew up just a few provinces apart in the Mekong Delta, but our snacks overlapped like old rivers.

The same bánh in different dialects.
The same taste, but shaped by different hands.

We didn’t grow up with brands.
We grew up with textures, sounds, and smells —
And every snack had a story.
 
🥥 Sweet, Sticky, and Shared
I remember saving coins for kẹo chuối – banana candy pressed with sesame, sun-dried until sticky.
It would cling to the paper wrap and to your teeth, and somehow, that made it taste even better.

There were kẹo dừa Bến Tre – rich, fragrant, with a slow chew that quieted even the loudest kids.
I used to break each piece in half, pretending I’d save the rest. I never did.

And the bright green bánh cốm, soft and fragrant with mung bean, wrapped in banana leaves, often saved for special holidays but sometimes found in my school bag — placed there quietly by my grandmother.

Childhood wasn’t loud.
It was full of small gifts like this —
wrapped in leaves, tied with care, and eaten slowly.
 
🌽 The Crispy, the Crackling, and the Quick
Then came the salty ones.

Bánh phồng tôm: prawn crackers puffed in hot oil, the thrill of watching them grow
Bắp rang bơ: popcorn sold in little paper cones on market days
Bánh tráng nướng: grilled rice paper with scallions and quail egg — our version of pizza, long before we knew what pizza was
At some point, I learned to sneak bim bim (crispy chips) into class and trade them for marbles or friendship. We weren’t supposed to, but the thrill was part of the flavor.

Now, years later, when I pass a stall selling these things, I don’t buy much — but I always stop.
And I always smile.

 
👫 Rediscovering Childhood Together
On a recent trip through the outskirts of Vĩnh Long, my husband and I stopped at a tiny roadside stand.

There, an old woman was selling kẹo gừng — spicy ginger candy with a powdery coating, warm on the tongue, fiery on cold days.
She offered us a piece each.

He bit into his and winced at the spice.
I laughed. “You never liked this, even as a kid.”

But I did.
Because it reminded me of my grandmother’s stories. Of rainy season afternoons.
Of growing up in a time when treats were rare, but never felt lacking.

Some snacks you outgrow.
Some grow with you.
 
🌙 When Flavors Become Memory
Vietnamese childhood snacks aren’t about indulgence.
They’re about moments:

A small joy between chores
A shared bite that said “you’re my friend”
A folded leaf that held more than candy — it held care
And even now, when we taste those things again — no matter how old we are — we remember.

We remember that we were once small, once free, once full of wonder.
And we still carry that part of us —
in every bite.

 
Next up:
📖 The Kindness of a Meal – Stories of Being Fed by Strangers in Vietnam