Lemongrass, Ginger and Mint Vietnamese Cookbook: Classic Vietnamese Street Food Made at Home by Nguyen Linh

Author:Nguyen, Linh [Nguyen, Linh]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Rockridge Press
Published: 2017-05-05T22:00:00+00:00

Chicken Phở

Chapter Five

Phở

NOODLE SOUP

Classic Phở Phở Bò

Beef Meatballs Bò Viên

Stir-Fried Beef Phở Phở Xào

Chicken Phở Phở Gà

Chicken Phở Salad Phở Gà Trộn

Beef Phở Rolls Phở Cuốn

Red Wine Beef Stew Phở Phở Sốt Vang

Unlike most traditional Vietnamese dishes created by rice-growing farmers in the countryside, phở is a relatively modern urban creation that originated in the city of Hanoi and only reached rural parts of the country in recent decades. Learning about the origins of a bowl of phở is like reviewing the most eventful century in Vietnamese history.

This pure Hanoi delicacy came to life in the early 20th century in times of interesting and tumultuous multicultural undercurrents. In an attempt to facilitate trade between Tonkin (North Vietnam) and China, French colonists allowed a new wave of Chinese immigrants into Tonkin. This area soon became a cultural melting pot where various languages were spoken. Many modern researchers try to explain the origins of the name phở by pointing to a phonetic similarity between French pot-au-feu and Cantonese rou fen.

Regardless of the name’s mysterious origin, it was “phở sure” the French who indirectly propelled phở into stardom. Prior to the French colonial period, the Vietnamese didn’t eat beef because cows were needed to plow fields and pull carriages. In the early twentieth century, there were only a few beef butchers in Hanoi, mainly to supply meat to the French. In his research collection about Hanoi in the twentieth century, Vietnamese writer Siêu Hải explained how phở, an internationally known beef soup, came about from a nation whose people found eating beef an alien idea. He suggested that phở originated from a Vietnamese dish called xáo trâu, which was popular among Vietnamese workers in the marketplace. Xáo trâu consisted of slices of water buffalo meat, herbs, and broth over bún (round, thin rice noodles). After selling the best meat to the French, beef butchers often sold the unwanted bones and remnants, from which xáo trâu vendors created a beef variation called xáo bò. Later, they realized that the sour taste of the bun noodle, made from fermented rice, didn’t really match the flavor of beef and beef broth in their new food creation. They replaced the bún with a new invention inspired by another popular traditional dish—bánh cuốn, or plain steamed rice crêpe rolls. They made the crêpes thicker and cut them into flat strips, which is how the phở noodle has been made ever since.

Some foreigners think that phở is the name of the noodle, but phở means the whole dish, and the noodle is bánh phở, meaning starch-based food for phở. Bánh phở is widely available in Hanoi markets as both whole crêpes and cut strips. When I was small, phở sellers used to cut crêpes into noodles using a cleaver, something that was fun to watch while eating. Today, phở noodles are cut by the noodle makers before being delivered to phở vendors.

Phở began to spread from northern cities after the Geneva Agreements of 1954, when Vietnam was split in half and almost a million northerners, bringing Chinese cultural influences, migrated south.

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