THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME "LINH FISH" IN THE MEKONG DELTA

Linh fish is a type of fish belonging to the carp family, but its body is small, long, and has a blue-white color. At the beginning of the flood season, the spirit fish is only as big as the incense legs, which people are used to calling young Linh fish. After that, the fish will grow up, counting when the water jerks, the spirit fish will also grow to its full size, but only as big as the thumb. The first fish in the season is the best, when the fish is small, the bones are not hard enough to eat the bones, and there is fat, so the fish is very fatty.

Although it is said that Linh fish has been familiar for a long time with people in the West, but why it is called Linh fish, there are many anecdotes that not everyone can know.

The first anecdote is recorded in a French document Excursions et Reconnaissances, q. X, Mai – June 1885, page 178: “Nguyen Anh came from Vam Nao [the river connecting Tien Giang and Hau Giang in An Giang] but seeing this fish [spirit] jump into the boat, people got suspicious, so they didn't go, Later it became clear that if he went, he would be miserable because he had Tay Son's military uniform at Thu Chien Sai [Cho Thu, across from the head of Cu Lao Gieng, now in Cho Moi district], so the people [Nguyen Anh] named (that fish) "fish spirit" ingratitude" (quoted from Vuong Hong Sen's Southern Vietnamese Dictionary, pp. 112. Culture Publishing House, 1993).

The second anecdote about the spirit fish was told by the ancestors that the spirit fish first appeared from the Ho Sea and then drifted to the Tien and Hau rivers. After that, they will return to their homeland, the land of Thap pagoda, so at that time people often call it "fish up", gradually over time people in the West read the camp as "fish spirit" and from there appeared the name Linh fish. as of now.

The third anecdote about this fish is that folk believe that this fish has a special sacredness, every time on the 10th day of the 10th lunar month, they will return to their origin. It is because of this feature that people have named them "spirit fish".

There is another theory that the origin of the name fish Linh comes from the Khmer word "trech" ("trey" in Khmer means "fish"), then gradually Vietnamese people read the word "chanh" became "linh", so from there appeared the name "fish spirit" in folklore.

There are so many anecdotes, but people in the West rarely care about its origin, people only care that this is an abundant product that God has bestowed. Many forefathers said that before 1980, there were countless spirit fish. Each household can harvest a few bushels of reishi per day. Placing the fern is also the most popular way to catch the spirit fish. Dandelion is a tool sewn with nets, used to place in areas of flowing water, fish swim along the ladder into a gourd with a length of about 5 meters, once the fish is in, it cannot swim out. In the flood season, people often put the bottom in the river banks, fish from the field to the big river will reach the bottom. Sometimes the fish goes to the bottom so much that people can't lift the bottom up, they have to let the fish go down so that they can open the bottom. People do not weigh the spirit fish by kilograms for sale, but by baskets and bags. The proverb "Cheap as a spirit fish" was also born because of that. At that time, the spirit fish was so much that people still had no appetite, people had to brew fish sauce or make a fish sauce for the dry season.

Fish sauce brewed from Linh fish was very delicious and popular at that time. Until now, some people in the West still keep the habit of brewing reishi fish to make a fish sauce for year-round use. During the French colonial period, many people also cooked spirit fish to get fish fat to light lamps.

But that was more than a few decades ago, in the past few years, the spirit fish has also gradually become sparse with the water. Because the floating water no longer overflows to the Mekong Delta like before, the spirit fish also disappears accordingly. Households who have bought boats and nets to prepare for the fishing season in the floating season are also sad. The people of the West now no longer say "cheap as the spirit fish anymore" because the spirit fish is less and less, the value is also increasing. If you catch a bunch, someone is waiting to buy it.

Today, reishi has become a specialty in restaurants and large eateries everywhere. Of course, with a price that is not cheap, but still makes diners all over the region fall in love because of its deliciousness and many attractive ways of processing such as deep-fried pangasius, braised reishi (pineapple), reishi. cook sour soup to eat with crazy cotton, Linh fish cook hot pot with fish sauce,

Wherever you are, whenever you have the opportunity to visit the Mekong Delta in the floating season, you should try this product. Because Westerners tell each other that, maybe someday, the spirit fish will only be left in memory, in the legends of the West in the flood season.