Mekong Delta - Cottage Industry - written by Anne

Cottage Industry visits in the Mekong Delta – written by Anne

COCONUT FACTORY VISIT

Firstly they take the husks off to make fibre which can be used to produce matting (eg your doormat), then the flesh is used for coconut milk and cream, the shell is then burned to create charcoal hence nothing is wasted.

 

BRICK MAKING FACTORY

The local clay from the rice fields was collected and then put through an extruder machine to produce hollow type bricks. These were placed outside for 10 days to dry out and then were fired in the kiln (that was heated by the rice husks), then the bricks were brought outside to cool down for four days.

 

 

This practice is going to end in 2020 as the government doesn’t like the pollution caused. However even the ash produced is recycled and reused back in the local area for the farmers to use on their land – this in turn increases land fertility. So nothing is wasted in the process of this old fashioned brick making.

 

LOCAL MEKONG DELTA RICE NOODLE FACTORY

They harvest the rice from the field and add water then put through a grinder creating rice flour, this is suspended in a liquid and tapioca is added to this as a starch to bind together the ingredients and add strength. This is then feed onto a conveyor belt which was heated from the steam below. This cooks the thin sheet of rice paper which is then transferred to a bamboo cooling rack.

   

 

It is dried in the sun and peeled off the bamboo rack then fed through a rotary cutter to form the sliver thin rice noodles. Note the yellow noodles of Central Vietnam have egg yoke added to them to get their colouring.