I've written before about the significance of "Đồ Kho" in Vietnamese cuisine, which is a catch-all phrase for “braised foods in caramelized sauce." Anything and everything can be thrown into the "kho" pot. It is a poor man's resourceful method to pack a hefty amount of salty and umami flavor into the braised dish so that even 2 small fishes and whatever available garden vegetables can stretch for 5 people.

But now, let's talk about "Kho Quẹt," which is an even thriftier version of "kho." During its original days, nobody made "Kho Quẹt" out of choice. When the children learned that they were having "Kho Quẹt" for a meal today, they inherently understood that times were tough and resources were scarce...either for the family or the country as a whole. 

Because whereas regular "Đồ Kho" would at least have an ounce of meat or 2 skinny fishes and some vegetables, "Kho Quẹt" had none of those luxuries, as measly as they may be.

"Kho Quẹt," at its original form to those who had to resort to it, was simply a caramelized braised sauce scraped together with the most basic ingredients: onions, garlic, sugar, and salt (or fish sauce if you're lucky). Steamed jasmine rice clumps were then dipped into the sauce (the "Quẹt" action) to soak a little bit of luxurious and bold flavor into the rice, to make us forget for a moment that outside of this rain-beaten weathered tin roof, we didn't know where our next meal was coming from.

But like human history and cultures, foods also evolved over time. Nowadays, a new generation of cooks have reinvented the once desolate "Kho Quẹt" into a modern and upscale dish. Some versions have decadent pork belly fat. Some versions are garnished with gourmet truffles.

Despite the expansive evolution of "Kho Quẹt" from its humble origin, we can all agree that there is no wrong way or right way to cook this versatile dish. Because the only one true mission that "Kho Quẹt" must achieve...is that it must feed the belly when nothing else will.