What makes Vietnamese food so special? After an eating tour with Intrepid Travel*—traveling through Hanoi, Hoi An, Saigon, and the Mekong Delta—I can't un-smell the fresh herbs and pungent fish sauce in just about every dish. Each dish could really have its own bottled fragrance. L'eau de Pho (care for a spritz?) would be redolent of mint, cilantro, lemongrass, long-simmered beef bones, and, of course, fish sauce.
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Despite the varied landscape of Vietnam, all of the cuisine contains this brilliant balance of aromatics, heat, sweetness, sourness, and fish-sauciness. As with other Asian cuisines, it's all about the yin and yang; the sweet and the salty, the cooling and the warming, the fresh and the fermented.
To really understand the flavors of Vietnam, it's helpful to look at a map first.
Shaped like an elongated S, the skinny country is about the size of Italy, with China to the north, Laos and Cambodia to the west, and the South China Sea to the east. The 3,000-kilometer coastline snakes down, marked by Hanoi in the north, the rugged central highlands, the sprawling Hoi Chi Minh City (aka Saigon) in the south, and the fertile Mekong delta ("the rice bowl of the country") at the bottom hook.
A Basic Introduction to Vietnamese Food
The food of the north is heavily influenced by China with its stir-fries and noodle-based soups. As you move south, there's more flavor-blending with nearby Thailand and Cambodia. The tropical climate down south also sustains more rice paddies, coconut groves, jackfruit trees, and herb gardens. The food in southern Vietnam is typically sweeter: sweeter broths for pho, more palm sugar used in savory dishes, and those popular taffy-like coconut candies made with coconut cream.
FRENCH INFLUENCE
Banh mi outside of Saigon. A Basic Introduction to Vietnamese Food
It's hard to talk about Vietnamese food without mentioning French colonization, which began with missionaries arriving in the 18th century and not ending until 1954. Clearly it had a lasting effect on the country, the people, the architecture, the land, and the flavors. Most obvious might be the banh mi, with its crusty French baguette as the foundation. But the Vietnamese have taken this sandwich and made it entirely their own with grilled pork, fish patties, sardines, cilantro, chili-spiked pickled carrots and other fillings.
Pho (pronounced fuh, like "fun" without the "n") is another example of French colonialism leaving its mark—the soup is a blend of Vietnamese rice noodles and French-minded meat broths. One theory contends that pho is a phonetic imitation of the French word "feu" (fire), as in pot-au-feu. Some say French colonialists slaughtered a bunch of cattle in Vietnam to satisfy their appetite for steak, and the ever-resourceful Vietnamese cooks used the scraps, bones, and any other rejected bits to create pho.
A quick note on broths: While we're talking about pho, our Intrepid Travel guide Hanh (a wonderful guy! hi Hanh!) spent an hour-long car ride from Hoi An to the Denang airport explaining the importance of broth in the act of courtship.
A mother judges her son's significant other on broth-making skills. Lackluster broths could mean no approval from the mother, according to Hanh. He cited some personal examples. A true broth-master knows exactly what stage the broth is in just by sniffing it. This is all to say, the Vietnamese are serious about broth.
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