A frugal meal of cum mtioi (salted rice) is the daily menu of impoverished families. However, the mandarins at the royal court in Huế regarded this dish as a specialty to reserve for distinguished guests. Today, many Hue residents still express their hospitality to close friends by serving them salted rice.
Cơm muối includes husked rice and refined salt served with chilli, lime, pepper, and lemon grass. After harvesting, farmers husk the rice without removing the bran and make sure the grains do not break. Then they cook the rice in a small earthen pot. They roast, simmer, or fry salt with the other ingredients and spices to create various dishes of salted rice with distinctive tastes. They usually serve the rice in antique-style bowls.
Hosts and guests enjoy a meal of rice and salt in a refined manner, eating bit by bit to savour the different flavours. The writer Nguyen Tuan meticulously described dozens of different salt dishes in his writings about the Hue cuisine.
Few people in present-day Hue are accomplished in cooking salted rice. Hue restaurants want to restore this simple dish to its former place of honour, but that is not as easy as it seems.