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