1. Honey
The Phú Quốc bee farm was fabulous! The employees there give incredibly detailed tours of the hives and gardens; I learned more about the life cycle and roles of honey bees than I ever knew. Like the dog kennels, the owner’s first attempt was apparently a homicidal failure, with the indigenous mountain wasps feasting on hundreds of thousands of imported honey bees. They also initially overstretched in their attempts to build large, diverse fruit and flower gardens; though there’s nothing alive in the greenhouse, they have managed to maintain durian, pineapple, coconut and banana trees here and there.
Their specialty is infused honeys; my favorite was cinnamon, but the durian, pepper, ginger, flowers, and turmeric were all absolutely delicious. All of the honey here is raw, which is to say straight out of the honeycomb. I hadn’t realized that I was accustomed to pasteurized and sweetened honeys; the taste of fresh raw honey really is superior. They have a small restaurant where you can order teas and cocktails built around the honeys, and I swear it was one of the best cocktails I’ve ever had! I can’t see myself bothering to head out that way again solo, but wouldn’t hesitate to revisit with a friend.
2. Pepper
Like honey, pepper is such an everyday food that I previously considered them more or less interchangeable. Not so! Again, this fresh pepper was by far the best I’ve ever tasted. Phú Quốc pepper is actually a huge export, famous for being the best in the world; apparently they have the same plants as in India but a superior climate.
All Anglo diaspora tables are set with white salt and black pepper; being partially Sicilian I’m also used to using white or red pepper in specific dishes. It’s something that’s always matched a certain way, like wine: arrabbiata only uses red pepper and besciamella only white; they simply aren’t made any other way.
Having never given this any thought, I was truly surprised to learn that the red pepper flakes I know are in fact dried chilis, and red peppercorn is a totally different flavor, ripened and sweet. It’s the rarest pepper because timing the picking has to be just right, and it’s harder to dry than black and white pepper. Green, black, white, and red pepper are all from the same plants, the difference in color and flavor is due to the method of drying:
Green pepper is harvested and dried in the shade before ripening. It tastes tart, not fully peppery.
Black pepper is harvested when green peppercorns are just beginning to ripen and turn red. After 3 days of drying in the sun, the peppercorns turn black. This is baseline pepper flavor.
White pepper is black pepper with the blackened skin removed. It tastes more mild than black pepper. The difference between black and white pepper is the difference between red and white wine.
Red pepper is the rarest and most expensive, it is left to become fully red and ripe before being dried in the shade.
There are many pepper farms on Phú Quốc, but the Phú Quốc Countryside pepper farm has a wonderful English speaking owner and a little restaurant where you can order a pepper tea, their totally modern concoction. I actually really enjoyed it, it is perfect for gently clearing the sinuses if you are sick, or closing the appetite after a meal! They also sell pepper salt, each of the different types of pepper, jars of mixed peppercorns, and a pepper sauce that mixes pepper salt and fish sauce and is great for marinating BBQ or dipping fruit (for a more local flavor).
3. Fish Sauce
Fish sauce is another iconic export of Phú Quốc; it is ubiquitous in Vietnamese households and the most desirable types are exported all around the world. It is Vietnam’s first export to achieve EU PDO (product of designated origin) status. So, just as Champagne is strictly made from 6 types of grape grown and bottled within 100 miles of the Champagne region outside Paris (everything else is crémant), Phú Quốc fish sauce is made strictly from a rare species of anchovy (called Rice Fish) indigenous to the 22 island Phú Quốc archipelago, and bottled on the island (everything else is just fish sauce).
There’s not much to see at the fish sauce factory; gigantic vats of anchovies are pumped with brine and left to ferment. The brine recipe is 1 part salt, 2 parts water. After the first week, the fermented liquid is drained from the vats and then recirculated into them daily, to create consistency in the sauce. The vats are loosely covered with tarps; the lack of an airtight environment means that local weather affects the quality of the sauce. The rattan vats also impart a certain flavor; like whisky barrels, ancient vats are prized, and some are 200 years old.
Generally speaking, the longer the fish ferments, the more nitrogen rich it becomes, the less “fishy” it tastes, and the more expensive the sauce. However, according to the owner I spoke with, even with the same fermentation time and vat position, sauces from different years will have different amounts of nitrogen due to unpredictable weather; therefore some vintages are unexpectedly better than others and you just never know! Lastly, the local anchovies are becoming endangered due to overfishing and damage to their habitats, so great vintages are becoming rarer and more exclusive.
There is a grading system; the first extraction is the best, and subsequent extractions are diluted with salt water. So, the best you can buy is a bottle of the first extraction of a great vintage straight from the factory; the worst you could encounter would be last extraction, much diluted with seawater, blended with sauce made from other fish, and diluted again in a restaurant. In other words, the difference between a great vintage of Champagne and a minimart white wine spritzer. As with olive oil, the highest quality is typically reserved for dipping and used in luxury cooking, and the least expensive is consumed by the barrel in cheap restaurant kitchens.
4. Crocodiles
The last local industry I had to witness was the crocodile farm! Crocodile skin goods are a luxury product everywhere, but more accessible in Vietnam due to the farms being local. Don’t misunderstand; a small handbag will still cost you $700 here, just not $7000 like in Italy or Hong Kong, or $30,000+ like at Gucci, Chanel and Hermès. I am not morally against consuming animals, but I don’t want the animals I consume to live in misery, die in fear or experience torturous pain. So, I was very curious to see what was happening here.
Hundreds of crocodiles live here, with perhaps 20 to 40 grouped together in a pen. Their holds have a large concrete area for sunning and a large pool for swimming; they are drained and refilled on a schedule, and the crocs are fed on a schedule. In my opinion the pools should be drained and cleaned more frequently because they smelled bad (that’s clearly where the crocs defecate) but I just don’t know enough about it. The owner didn’t speak English so I couldn’t ask any questions.
None were displaying aggression; none had obvious health problems; all seemed well fed. When I walked by the first time, they all jumped in the water; after that they ignored me. Crocs are silent, they open their mouths to regulate their body temperature. They are fast runners as well as fast swimmers, and, I was surprised to see, cuddlers! They like to drape themselves on top of one another even when there is open space available.
A little research tells me lifespan on a farm is typically a year or two, and in the PETA videos of other Vietnamese farms, they are first electrocuted and then their throats are slit. According to reptile experts, it takes approximately an hour for a reptile to die with this method, so skinning them during this time is very cruel. It seems the current goal is to incapacitate them enough that they don’t hurt the workers while being slaughtered; for me it is an ethical imperative to render them unconscious prior to slaughter.
That said, I believe methods could easily be updated to a humane standard (like the one maintained by Cape Croco in South Africa) without any reduction in profit. I also think the banning of exotic skins by luxury houses panders to a naïve customer base that can’t afford them anyway. Do people honestly think the chickens and cows they eat lived marvelous lives? Brands will bring exotics back when designers or trends change. The current moratorium is just an excuse to cut a far less profitable, older segment of clientele, and perhaps gain some social currency to boot.
