With the characteristics of the flood season, when coming to the West at this time, visitors often enjoy specialties with quick, flexible, rustic preparation methods, preserving the freshness and natural sweetness. Accordingly, straw-grilled fish, grilled snails, or sour hotpot, fermented fish soup are delicious dishes that often appear in the meals of people in the West during the flood season. In particular, straw-grilled snakehead fish is almost a popular dish in every region of the West. This dish is associated with the process of reclaiming the southern lands.

Straw-grilled snakehead fish is very easy to make because it does not require elaborate preparation, just catch the fish from the field or river and wash it clean. The fish is left whole, without scaling, scraping slime, cutting open, or marinating. Use a bamboo stick or chopsticks to pierce straight from the mouth to the tail and grill the fish. The fish is buried in dry straw to grill, if there is no straw, it can be grilled on a wood or charcoal stove. When the fish is cooked, just scrape off the burnt layer on the outside of the scales and you can eat it. The fish has a delicate white flesh with a sweet and fragrant flavor. The straw-grilled snakehead fish is often eaten with herbs picked from the garden and dipped in salt and green chili. Nowadays, the dipping sauces that go with grilled snakehead fish are also more diverse in flavor, such as sweet and sour fish sauce, tamarind fish sauce, fermented fish sauce, etc. The accompanying vegetables are also more diverse, in addition to herbs, there are also green bananas, pineapples, and sliced star fruit, making the dish more flavorful.