After drawing more than 12,000 3D fish products, Nguyen Tan Dat in HCM City decided one day to dabble in making dried fish dish with Vietnamese clay.

His first work was done in 2020, when Dat was stuck at home for a long time because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In his free time, he watched documentaries that he filmed in Mekong Delta.

The more he watched, the more he remembered the landscape and people of the southern waters. The nostalgia about the land prompted him to make a dried fish dish, a typical dish of the Cuu Long (nine dragons) land.

When Dat was looking for materials, he discovered a pure Vietnamese clay created by a craftsman who makes clay flowers.

“Prior to that, kneaders all had to use foreign clay. But I was lucky enough when heard about a Vietnamese man who could create a kind of good Vietnamese clay,” he explained.

This gave him more energy and determination to model special dishes to popularize Vietnamese dishes.

It was not difficult to create models of dishes with clay, but Dat had to think about how to show the dishes in a way that allowed viewers to easily imagine the dish.

“For example, when I made pho, I thought about which pho (noodles served with beef, chicken) I should create – pho for northern or southern people. As for bun bo Hue (Hue beef noodle soup), I thought about what I should choose – Hue style or HCM City style,” he said.

After deciding which styles he would choose, he began to choose the clay materials, and experiment and mix colors until he could obtain the right colors he wanted.

It took Dat one or two days to make a dish, depending on the difficulty level. He spent time on learning about the history of the dish, and the ways and methods of cooking as well as the tastes of people in different regions.

Dat not only creates fish from clay, but other dishes as well. The completed collections ‘goc mien tay’ (dishes for the Mekong Delta’s people), ‘mam com Tet ba mien’ (dishes for Tet holiday of three regions), ‘hop mut truyen thong’ (traditional marmalade) and ‘ba muoi mon an Vietnam’ (30 Vietnamese dishes).

After four years of creating clay dishes, Dat has begun commercializing some products. Dat is selling dish models for VND500,000-1 million each model, depending on the size and the difficulty level. All the products are handmade. 

Ngoc Lai