The Flickr Coconutcandymaking Image Generatr

Coconut candy making is an almost completely manual operation (grinding and blending aside) which is done at god speed. While the lady in the foreground continues to cut up blobs of freshly turned out coconut candy into tiny squares, her companions are quick to take up the cut squares and wrap them individually in rice paper. Yes, I thought that they were wrapped in wax paper but no, they are wrapped in rice paper, which only adds to the already superb taste. Our guide Tony holds up one of the squares to show us the finished product. Apart from the all natural version, Vietnamese coconut candy is also available in a host of other flavours like padan, chocolate, durian and others. I loved the regular version though. (Mekong Delta, Vietnam, Nov. 2016)

Now here is a bitter lesson to prove what we keen photographers always hear- do not see everything behind the viewfinder, put the camera down sometimes and simply live the moment. Oh well- I missed the cutting action while trying to decide between still or video. Video would have meant digging my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 out of my pocket. My Nikon can do it as well, but being a fairly new camera, I was not too confident putting it to action that quickly. That blob of coconut candy had been so large that I never expected it to get cut that quickly- this lady is a thorough pro! Well, here is the last but of the blob of coconut candy being manually cut with a large double handled mezzaluna kinfe while fascinated tourists look on. (Mekong Delta, Vietnam, Nov. 2016)

Curious tourists crowd around a local lady who takes her place in this stage of the live demo of coconut candy making. Grating and blending are done using simple mechanical machines. Once the blending is done, the finished product comes out as a big, gooey blob which is them sliced manually into tiny blocks of coconut candy. Here this lady is seen preparing her cutting board to receive the next blob of freshly made coconut candy. Being an all natural product, where even the sweetening is with coconut milk and not sugar, it was super delicious. Of course, nowadays you get other flavours as well, so additives have been brought in, unfortunately. (Mekong Delta, Vietnam, Nov. 2016)