Published:  13:38 Thursday - March 08, 2012

Pa Co people of A Luoi mountainous district (Thua Thien Hue) often receive guests with this specialty named OmPoReng (Sung Tre).

As people's experience, the bamboo forests along the streamline A No are the “sanctuary” of Sung Tre. They are the immense bamboo forests of Nham, Hong Bac, A Roang communes in A Luoi mountainous district. Each hunter divides their own “territory” by leaving traces on the bamboo where they have first touched.

Before transforming into butterflies, Sung species only live inside the young bamboo's body, like the parasite insects sucking nutrients from the bamboo to be alive. Therefore only the hunters know this secret.

The young bamboo trees grow up until their height is across the human's head and stop development, the bamboo inter-nodes are shortened. The shoots' body has a flat hole longer than a rice seed, the glabrous outside is where Sung Tre lives.

Pa Co people can process Sung Tre into many different dishes and make them become specialties of this highland. Particularly, the food from Sung Tre cannot miss an important spice, which is forest pepper; other spices include roasted pepper, roasted salt...

Sun Tre is boiled roughly with mineral water before being processed. All the spices are mixed into Sung Tre right in the bamboo pipe. After a certain time, roast this bamboo pipes on fire. Sung Tre food has hot tastes of pepper and chilli pepper, and is considered the original dish of Pa Co people.