(An untold story written in Hoa Minh Truong’s fifth book “A humble Vietnamese Woman” published 2015)
Thanh loves cooking; she can cook Asian and Western dishes; even though she has never learned from the cooking school. She just looks, copies and learns from the television, when someone shows it or she tastes it. In Katanning, the Metro Meat closed annually because of the short of sheep season, and she worked at local Chinese restaurant. She could make beautiful fish and chips, a favorite food of Australia and England, after taking ownership of the shop. She also loves animals, actually dogs and birds.
However, every time she watches the cruel treatment of the animal from someone on the television screen, she feels sorry and pity. Hòa told her about the eating habits of the Communist leaders. It is so barbaric, but most animal protection organizations don’t know about it. Mostly, they just know the Communist leaders killed and enslaved people. The number of victims is up to one hundred million. In reality, most Communists ignore human rights, so they can badly treat animals; it isn’t hard to understand.
Moreover, the Chinese are concerned with the traditional medicine by herb and animal, even the unborn baby, which is horrible. The rare animals such as elephant, tiger, bear, pholidota, rhino, etc., have been targeted by poachers. If the Chinese do not buy for medical reasons, then the animals wouldn’t be killed.
The Communist leaders have the special dress like the Mao Tse Tung suit (also called the Mao suit), surely the food and recipes are special too, an extraordinary cooking is made by the reliable chef. Therefore, behind the Iron Curtain, actually the private life of a powerful leader is expected to be top secret.
Chairman Hồ Chí Minh’s favorite dish was the lip of the expensive fish of Lake of the Returned Sword, and the kitchen team had to get a dish for his daily meal. In the Hồ palace, a man named Mr. Mười, a peasant in Quảng Ngải province, followed the troops after the 1954 Geneva Treaty, and served for “Uncle Hồ.” His job was very easy; he just took care of ten cows from Fidel Castro and squeezed the milk, and he handed to the leader at least two liters a day. Mr. Mười was a non-smoker, and he managed the food store of the palace. Every month, Mao Tse Tung supplied food to Comrade Hồ Chí Minh by airplane. The items were ginseng from North Korea, apples, grapes, biscuits, and also the luxury cigarette brands produced by China. But Hồ just kept the herbal medicine for his strong sex life and then all were passed to the servants in the palace. Mr. Mười gave the unused goods to some close comrades; he revealed Hồ Chí Minh just smoked the cigarette of Philip Morris and opium provided by a minor ethnic at Hà Giang, a Mèo minor ethnic king named Vương Chí Xình. That man was promoted as the representative in the only parliament of The Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
Despite of this, the private life of the leader was kept as a national secret, but some Communists knew and rumoring about the eating of Hồ Chí Minh and Mao Tse-tung.
Sometimes Hồ Chí Minh flew to Beijing in a plane named the BH-195 (it means Uncle Hồ’s birthday on May 19) that was donated by the Soviet Union. Hồ and Mao enjoyed the special food and luxury wine at the king’s fishing place.
The dish called the fried Peking duck legs was the most favourite dish of the two Communist leaders. Obviously, the chef chose the duck like the selection of an imperial concubine in the old days. The duck had criteria: beautiful feathers, strong, healthy. The concubine duck was incarcerated in an iron cage and beneath this was a hot fire. The duck couldn’t stand the heat and had to jump ceaselessly, until its legs were swollen, and then the cooking team cut it, cleaned it up, marinated it in spices, and fried it in hot oil.
Mao Tse-tung and Hồ Chí Minh did love this dish, but it is barbaric. If the animal protection activist or organization knew, they would react by protesting, but unfortunately, they have never known what happened behind the Iron Curtain; moreover, the cruelty occurred at the top secret place in the Communist country.