Taste of Banh Mi in Vietnam cuisine

Banh Mi or bread arrived in the South of Vietnam in 1895 along with the French. From the first French bakery, the Vietnamese learned the secret of baking bread and turned it into a special of Vietnam cuisine.

Banh Mi in Vietnam cuisine

Banh Mi is not only served alone, but Vietnamese often increase ingredients in the baguette such as pork, bacon, eggrolls, pork paste and vegetables or mustard-a Vietnamese cuisine. The interfusion between Vietnamese and French cuisine has created a Vietnamese specialty – Vietnamese Banh Mi.

Listed among top 10 best street foods around the world by the National Geographic magazine, 5 unbelievable sandwiches from around the world voted by Huffingtonpost.com, written by numerous magazines, that is the Vietnamese Banh Mi or Vietnamese bread. It is available in the US for years and people love it. It is described as Vietnamese snack consisting of baguette bread filled with meat, vegetables and chili.Banh Mi officially became an English word in Oxford dictionary on March 24, 2011. Banh Mi has now helped Vietnamese cuisine become a permanent position to the world culinary map.

Banh Mi is a common fast food in Vietnam because people can eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. With various kinds of Banh Mi from traditional to fresh bread, Ho Chi Minh is often dubbed as the city of Banh Mi, because it is quick and light snack. Banh Mi has become a good friend of Ho Chi Minh City residents during the day. Bakers therefore crushed over dozens of Banh Mi to serve the taste of customers. Banh Mi arrived in Ho Chi Minh City at the end 19th century. Afterwards, the taste of Banh Mi became interfusion between French and Vietnamese culinary art.

In the old times, people often ate bread with pork. But today, it is difficult to find a real Vietnamese traditional store serving bread with pork which is cooked by traditional way like Sau Le bakery.  This store also adds many other kinds of ingredient but they keep the traditional way of cooking pork to sell with bread. Pork meat lean is the main ingredient using Banh Mi stuffing. It is marinated and cooked for hours to create the distinctive taste. Sau Le Banh Mi bakery has been in Ho Chi Minh City for years now. Baking is not only a job to make a living, the third generation of the Sau Le family wants to maintain traditional Banh Mi culture in Ho Chi Minh City.

With hundreds of bread types, ABC bakery could be called the home of bread.  The bread here is diversified from baguette, sandwiches to sweet bread. Quynh Hoa Banh Mi store is well-known in town by the diversification of filing for decades.  Customers coming here are not only impressed by quality of bread but also the friendliness of the seller. In Ho Chi Minh City, queuing up for bread is like a long standing tradition. No matter how many loaf of the bread they want to buy, people here don’t mind waiting a long line to get the favorite bread. Bread here includes 8 different types of fillings: pork, pressed meats, pork floss, sausage, another type of red pressed meats and 3 types of ham.

Along with Ho Chi Minh City, the port city of Hai Phong also owns a specialty, a very special kind of Banh Mi. This city still retains the tradition of Banh Mi Vietnam, but has also changed to serve different flavor enjoyed by local people. Almost three in the morning is the busiest time of the day for every bread maker in Hai Phong city when they get up and prepare the making bread. Mr. Cuong has been a baker in Hai Phong for 65 years now and is the inventor of Banh Mi stick. Mr. Cuong is the only Banh Mi stick in Hai Phong that has passed bread recipe down to next generation.

Doing exercises in the early morning, then buy some bread for breakfast, this has become a daily habit for the local people. Banh Mi often goes with pate. Mr. Cuong’s wife has 40 years of experience making pate. Pate is made from liver and fat creating the fragrance flavor. Different from the traditional Banh Mi, the filling of this special Banh Mi in Hai Phong City consists of only pate. In his free time, Mr. Cuong often helps put pate into the bread. They have done this job for the last 50 years and are good examples of couple keeping the local tradition. For Hai Phong people, eating some load of the special kind of Banh Mi becomes the daily habit. Customers ranged in all ages.  Whether bread is in the North or in the South, bread has always been an indispensable part of Vietnamese cuisine. Vietnamese love eating bread and it take place in the diversity and the taste of bread they made.  

Source: VTV4 – VTV.vn

Vietnam sustenance society outline

Vietnam sustenance society is framed in the characteristic lifestyle. It is a peculiarity of material society, as well as a profound gimmick. Through the peculiarities of cooking, individuals' capability and respects, behaviors and traditions in sustenance will be reflected. 

Vietnamese Dipping Sauce

Vietnam is a farming based nation, in this way, Vietnam nourishment society is impacted by the Wet Rice Civilization for a great many years. Rice assumes an imperative part in life of Vietnamese individuals. In addition, as being spotted in South East Asia with ideal states of nature, atmosphere and geology, Vietnamese individuals has been produce a plenitude of eatables, which gives great conditions to the innovativeness of food in Vietnam. Over the span of building and creating the nation, Vietnam experienced an arrangement of durable wars and masteries, particularly a 1000-year Chinese mastery, and the French imperialism, the sustenance society of Vietnam was impacted and more broadened. Sustenance of Vietnamese got to be more advanced and different, incompletely focused around the Chinese food, however remained it remarkable gimmicks of Vietnam. It was the provinciality of the French helped the differences of Vietnam nourishment society. Vietnamese off and on again ask why the Western individuals can make due by consuming bread step by step. Most vacationers coming to Vietnam are so astonished at the vicinity of rice and numerous dishes identified with rice, which makes the extraordinary of gimmicks in Vietnam nourishment. Numerous pagodas and sanctuaries in Vietnam use rice for adoring, as it is accepted that rice originates from the Mother Goddess Worship. Numerous major Vietnamese dishes and snacks are produced using rice, for example, rice porridge, steamed rice, glutinous rice cake, Banh Chung, particularly plain rice which is the fundamental dish in Vietnamese day by day supper. What's more, Pho is produced using rice. It implies that rice is the inside of dishes in Vietnamese cooking.

Vietnamese food also expresses the mental life of Vietnamese people. Vietnamese people have their own way to enjoy daily meals. All dishes of a meal will be laid on the tray at the same time with a small bowl of fish sauce or soy sauce in the center of the tray. By this way, a typical Vietnamese daily meal will have the presence of all family members. While eating together, they can share their opinions about some of dishes; even other daily topics are also discussed in the eating time. If having chances to explore the Vietnam food culture, you might really excited when learning about sauces in meals of Vietnamese people. You might be astonished when witnessing all family members using a bowl of fish sauce together, which creates the unique characteristic of Vietnamese food culture. Some people think that the bowl of fish sauce reflects the solidarity. Some others believe that fish sauce makes great contribution in forming the cultural feature of Vietnamese food.

Bun Thang

 Vietnamese food culture varies by regions from the north to the south. In Northern Vietnam, Vietnamese food is characterized by light and balanced flavors as the harmonic combination of many ingredients. Northerners has been using many kinds of meats like pork, beef, and chicken to cook; besides, some kinds of freshwater fish, crustaceans, and other mollusks like shrimps, crabs, and oysters, etc. Many famous dishes of Vietnam are cooked with these ingredients such as Bun Rieu. Northern Vietnam is seen to be the cradle of Vietnamese civilization in general and Vietnamese cuisine in particular with many notable dishes like Pho, Bun Rieu, Bun Thang, Bun Cha, Banh Cuon, etc. Then, food culture in Northern Vietnam became popular in Central and Southern Vietnam with suitable flavors in each regions. In Central Vietnam, the topography is characterized by mountains, thus, the regional cuisine of Central Vietnam is famous for its spicy food, which differs from two other parts with mostly non-spicy food. Hue cuisine is typical Central Vietnam’s food culture. Dishes of Hue cuisine are decorative and colorful, which expresses the influence of Vietnamese royal cuisine in the feudal period. Food in the region is often decorated sophisticatedly and used with chili peppers and shrimp sauces, namely, Bun Bo Hue, Banh xeo, or Banh beo, etc. In Southern Vietnam, the region is characterized by warm weather and fertile soil, which creates favorable conditions for planting a variety of fruit, vegetables and livestock. Thus, food in the region is often added with garlic, shallots and fresh herbs. Particularly, Southerners are favored of sugar; they add sugar in almost dishes. Here, there is also an influence of western and Asian cuisines on southern food, such as influences from Chinese, Indian, French, and Thailand.

Xeo cake

Vietnamese food culture put the spirit on top priority with daily meals being seen as family reunion meal in which people gather happily after a hard working day.

Source: AloTrip