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Explore Vietnamese Culture with pho noodles Page 6
Learn to Cook Pho
Read up and learn how to make your own pho dish on Page 10
In memory of Jonathan Joestar Rest easy, precious cinnamon roll.
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Table of Contents
(6) (10) (11) (14) (18) (20) (22)
A Pilgrimage for
Perfect Pho
Pho Noodle Soup Recipe
France VS Vietnam The Birthplace of Pho Style Guide Making and Harvesting Your Own Rice Noodles The Vietnam
War and its Shaping of Pho Interview with Vietnamese Restaurant Owner
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President Caesar Zeppeli Vice President Jill Fizzart Editor in Chief Damon Gant
Online Editor • Andrew Bauer Editorial Assistant • Benny Nohr Set Director/Photographer • Dio Brando Set Associate • Mia Fey Issue Intern • Sal Manella Operations Director • Kishibe Rohan Web Designer • Larry Butz Contributing Writers: Andrew Bauer Iris Leung lovingpho.com
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Wheat noodles! Rice noodles! French Noodles! Asian Noodles! Homemade noodles! Instant noodles! Whatever your preferences or budget happen to meet, you can be sure to find something you like within Ethnic Noodle! Ethnic Noodle is about more than just noodles. It is about exploring the different cultures behind them, and how they came to be. It is about the science of the noodle, and the hardships that led up to its creation. To some, it is a common quick idea for an impromptu meal. But to others, it is their passion, and how they make their living. As you enjoy Ethnic Noodle, think about more than just the delicious looking pictures and recipes; Slurp up some knowledge! - Andrew Bauer, your Ethnic Noodle editor
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Pilgrimage for
Perfect Pho ung e L s i By Ir
All photos courtesy of Andrew Bauer
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W
hen David Huynh decided to embark on a food pilgrimage to Vietnam, he went in with an open mind and willing taste buds. The Vietnamese-Canadian restaurateur, who currently runs Civil Liberties, a “no menu” speakeasy in Toronto, was looking to expand his culinary repertoire by digging deep into his roots. His parents had immigrated to Toronto from Saigon during the Vietnam War, meaning he’d grown up on southern Vietnamese dishes. But he wanted to learn more. His plan was to open a quickservice Vietnamese pho restaurant inspired by how the iconic noodle soup is made and enjoyed in Vietnam. Pho, considered to be Vietnam’s national dish, is beloved throughout the country and the world. In its simplest form, it consists of a fragrant broth poured over a bed of fresh rice noodles topped with a handful of green onion, herbs and succulent sliced meat. While beef pho (pho bo) is the most popular and is eaten throughout the day, chicken pho (pho ga) is also much loved – it’s said to have been first concocted in 1939 when the government tried to curb the slaughtering of cows
A prime example of one of the many pho dishes encountered on David Huynh’s pilgrimage.
by forbidding the sale of beef on Mondays and Fridays. As it’s lighter than its beefy counterpart, it is often preferred for breakfast. But there are countless variations on the theme, and everyone has his or her favourite local spot to eat it.
birthplace of the dish in the early 20th Century. When Huynh arrived at 6am, fresh off the sleeper bus, he received a warm welcome at Pho 10 (10 Ly Quoc Su, Hoan Kiem), a casual beef noodle-only pho restaurant that came highly recommended by local friends.
Huynh’s one-month trip, his first time in Vietnam, took him from the north to the south and through the country’s central provinces, searching for what he considered the ideal bowl of pho.
“This bowl saved our lives. We arrived before the sun even came up and it was the first stop that we made in Hanoi. They only serve beef pho and the ratio between beef and noodle was perfect. The accompaniments were lime, chilli, and on the table were
His first stop was the capital Hanoi, widely considered to be the
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pickled shallots, which I had never seen before,” he said. “[It was] served simply, with green onion, cilantro, onion, lime and chilli, a two-to-one soup-to-noodle ratio with a simple, yet rich broth. Nothing more,” he said. The simplicity of the dish in northern Vietnam can be traced back to the war from 1954 onwards and years after reunification in 1975. During this time, food in northern Vietnam was rationed out and subsidized by the Soviet Union, which transformed pho restaurants into state-run shops that served up bowls of bad broth, rotten rice noodles and very little meat. Some street vendors still had their reputations to uphold though, and Andrea Nguyen, author of Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, explained that there were “secret” pho shops that sold quality rice noodles to “customers in the know”. Those that
couldn’t get the good noodles began offering Chinese fried breadsticks (youtiao in Mandarin) as a side dish in order to compensate for substandard noodles. China has had an influence on Vietnamese culture for centuries, with Vietnamese people already eating congee – a very common breakfast dish in China – with breadsticks at this time, so serving them with pho was a natural progression. As pho eventually made its climb back onto its original pedestal, with the change pegged to economic reform in the early 1980s, the breadsticks remained as a testament to harder times and are still served alongside the bowl of soup today. A few days later, Huynh would experience another excellent bowl of noodles at Blue Butterfly (69 Ma May, Hoan Kiem), a cooking class run by a French chef. Although he considers
the classic bowl at Pho 10 to be his favourite, the noodles at Blue Butterfly had more “finesse” and the broth was richer and better seasoned; you could tell it had the “touch of a Frenchtrained chef behind it”, he said. Huynh quickly learned in the class that the broth is key to the success of the seemingly simple soup. Its preparation is an exercise in great patience, taking anywhere from three hours to an entire evening. “The long preparation for the broth is the most important step to cooking pho. While chicken pho only takes three to four hours to make by simmering chicken bones, beef pho takes double the amount of time or even overnight,” Nguyen Van Khu, a Hanoi-based chef who has been working in the restaurant industry for more than a decade, told me, noting that the traditional recipe requires a complex combination of spices including star anise, cinnamon, stir-fried pepper, coriander roots, sipuncula and a mix of grilled shallots, onion and ginger. The bones in the stock can include hoof, rib bones and knuckles, which according to Nguyen, is owed to the French dating back to the early 20th century.
A fair number of ingredients that one may find in a pho dish, including onion, ginger, and star anise.
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“French colonials in northern Vietnam ordered the slaughtering of cows for steaks and other dishes they craved. The bones and tough cuts were left to local cooks, who soon found a way to turn the leftovers into delicious noodle soup,” she said.
“It was sold as affordable street food that vendors customised for each diner and the first pho fans were likely people working on merchant ships that sailed up and down the Red River.” The soup’s popularity soon spread from Hanoi to Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), where the southern Vietnamese have taken a more modern approach to the dish.
“Huynh quickly learned in the class that the broth is key to the success of the seemingly simple soup.” “Hanoians like pure broth without any layer of fat and the dish is sprinkled with green onion, Lang basil, a bit of coriander and served with chillies, garlic vinegar and a squeeze of lime. But in Saigon, the broth is thicker and more fatty and served with fresh bean sprouts, sweet basil, mint, hoisin sauce and chilli sauce and they put quite a bit of sugar in the broth,” Khu said. During the southern leg of his trip, Huynh took another pho cooking class at Vietnam Cookery (26 Ly Tu Trong, Ben Nghe, Ho Chi Minh City) where he experienced a stark difference from the bowls in the north. It was rich and sweet, thanks to the addition of rock sugar in the broth and was accompanied with large chunks of daikon, bean sprouts, herbs and hoisin sauce.
Huynh likened it to the pho that is often served in North America. “The spices tend to be lighter in the north and they’re careful to be a bit more subtle. To an untrained palate, they might say that the broth in the north is bland, but it’s not that at all. The foundation for the broth in the north and the south is the same – but they just use very different seasoning,” Huynh said. The pilgrimage also took him to Hoi An, an ancient city on Vietnam’s central coast. There, he tried a bowl at Morning Glory (106 Nguyen Thai, Minh An), which he found similar to the slightly sweet version he’d previously tried, but noted that it was served with roasted peanuts, a common topping for noodle dishes in Hoi An.
But considering the beating that the iconic dish took throughout wartime and how the foundation of the soup, despite the differences in end product, has remained the same, it’s clear how versatile pho really is. It’s the everyman’s dish that can be enjoyed for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It can be served with both a minimalist approach of the north or the modern flair of the south. Above all, it’s an embodiment of the country’s modern history and the resilient, indomitable Vietnamese spirit.
This article was first featured on bbc.com on December 9th, 2016. http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20161205-apilgrimage-for-perfect-pho
Despite having roots in southern Vietnam, by the end of his trip Huynh felt more connected with the culinary philosophies of the north. He preferred the simple, classic approach, and was inspired by the way that war and food scarcity has shaped northern Vietnamese cuisine. Based on his experience, he plans on using the purist northern methods when developing the menu for his new venture. “To pick between Bac (north) and Nam (south) in terms of which pho is better, it is truly Bac – even though I’m Nam and used to southern styles,” he said.
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Vietnamese Pho Noodle Soup 8 ounces rice noodles 12 ounces lean beef sirloin, fat trimmed Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper 1 large onion, halved 1 4-inch piece ginger, unpeeled, halved 3 cups low-sodium beef broth 5 star anise pods 1 cinnamon stick 4 scallions 2 jalapeno peppers, preferably red and green 1/2 cup fresh cilantro 2 to 4 tablespoons fish sauce 1 cup fresh bean sprouts
The final product that you’re aiming for!
Directions Prepare the rice noodles as the label directs. Meanwhile, place a large pot over high heat. Poke the meat all over with a fork to tenderize it and season with salt and pepper. Sear the meat until charred but still rare, 2 to 3 minutes per side, then transfer to a plate. Add the onion and ginger to the pot; cook about 4 minutes. Add the broth, 3 cups water, the star anise and cinnamon, reduce the heat and simmer about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, thinly slice the scallions and jalapenos (remove seeds for less heat) and tear the cilantro. Thinly slice the meat against the grain. Drain the noodles. Add the fish sauce to the broth and boil 5 minutes. Discard the ginger, star anise and cinnamon stick. Remove and slice the onion. Divide the noodles among 4 bowls; top with the broth, beef, scallions, cilantro, bean sprouts, jalapenos and onion.
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France VS Vietnam The Birthplace of Pho
Rice Noodles serve as the heart of the pho dish.
A
mong all the Vietnamese dishes that came to the attention of the people in the western hemisphere, nothing else has received such tremendous acceptance as pho. Pho is considered as the national dish of Vietnam, and it has captured the fascination of so many people in the west because of its deceptive simplicity and its complex flavors. Pho is the perfect comfort food – warm, hearty and deliciously refreshing. In Vietnam it’s the common people’s food. It’s Vietnamese street food.
Vietnamese Pho can also be seen as a mirror that reflects Vietnamese heritage and way of life. A dish that is steeped in tradition, pho is closely tied to Vietnam that the history of pho can read as a parallel to the history of its country of origin itself in the last hundred years. With the migration of Vietnamese across the globe after the Fall of Saigon in 1975, the national dish of Vietnam came to grace the tables of people of different heritages, thus leading to the colorful evolution of pho throughout the years. In this article I’ll discuss pho, its history and what makes pho many people’s favorite dish.
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Of course, before I go into the history of pho, we should first tackle a more fundamental question about pho, namely: What in the world is pho? Many readers know exactly what pho is. Articles on pho that you find around the Internet define the dish simply as Vietnamese noodle soup, traditionally made with beef or chicken broth that is flavored with various spices and topped with various herbs. But this definition seems far too simplistic because it does not really capture the rich and intense essence of beef in the broth that can only be achieved by simmering marrow-rich beef bones on low heat for at least three hours. It does not describe the complex layers of flavor created by the herbs and spices in pho. It does not illustrate the many textures created by the chewy rice noodles, the tender beef slices and the crunchy bean sprouts in the soup.
“Pot au feu literally means ‘pot on fire, signifying the long hours required to create the soup.” At the very least, the description “noodle soup” may be a misnomer. Soup implies that the dish is a side dish, but in fact pho itself is the main course. Pho is a noodle dish, and not a soup dish. So if you catch the phrase “noodle soup” somewhere on this side then it’s only because I let my guard down for a moment there.
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Pho should be called “Vietnamese noodle” or “soup noodle” because it is a noodle dish. You cannot expect two bowls of pho made in two separate kitchens to ever taste the same. There are many recipes of pho existing out there, with each recipe somewhat different from each other. But those are only the published ones. There are countless others that are closely held by professional chefs running popular pho restaurants, and we’ll never know what they are. So techniques in cooking and preparing pho vary from chef to chef. Variations can also depend on what type of pho is being prepared. For instance, pho bac, which is pho from the northern regions of Vietnam, is made quite differently from how pho is prepared in southern Vietnam.
be a Vietnamese adaptation of the French soup “pot au feu” or French beef stew, which the French brought to Vietnam when they came to rule the country. But let me take this theory further into something more concrete to possibly reflect facts. It is this: Vietnamese love to take foreign words and use them as our own, but with a Vietnamese accent. Thus “feu” became “Pho.” But there’s more. It’s always been a popular knowledge that
The history of pho stretches only a hundred years back in Vietnam’s recent past. But just as those hundred years have shaped Vietnam into the country it is today, so do those hundred years have shaped the way pho has become. Three events in Vietnamese history have marked the history of pho. They are - The unification of Vietnam under French rule in 1887 - The splitting of the country into North and South Vietnam in 1954 - The Fall of Saigon in 1975. The general theory held by most Vietnamese culinary experts is that the word “pho” is a corruption of the French “feu” or “fire.” Pho could
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Pho is traditionally eaten with a pair of chopsticks and a soup spoon
the French, specifically a man named Jesuit Alexandre de Rhodes in the country between 1624 and 1644, helped convert Vietnamese written language from a variant of Chinese characters into the modern age with translations using the Latin alphabet system. So the French connection to pho and Vietnamese language is much more intimate than casual, and it’s not unthinkable that pho did come from feu. “Pot au feu” literally means “pot on the fire,” signifying the long hours required to create the soup. Just like with pho, cartilaginous, marrow-rich beef bones are used to make the broth of the pot au feu. These bones are left to boil and simmer in water on low heat for at least three hours, and the scum and foam formed by excess grease from the bone marrow are skimmed and discarded. Another similarity that pot au feu shares with pho is the fact that ginger and onions are also roasted in an open flame before they are added to flavor the broth. Vegetables like carrots and turnips are used to top pot au feu. In pho, these vegetables are replaced by bean sprouts and herbs, with a little
Such dishes actually already exist in Vietnamese cuisine, being called “hu tieu” with different local variations. For the pho connoisseurs, these socalled seafood or pork pho recipes cannot be considered pho in the strict traditional sense. In any case, the fact remains that pho has captured the fascination of people from all over the world because of the appeal of its distinct and layered flavors. There’s no question you’ll find great tasting and authentic pho in many of Vietnam’s local pho shops. But wherever you are in the world – whether in the United States, in Europe, in Australia or even in other Asian countries – you are sure to find a Vietnamese restaurant that serves pho as well, the authentic kind.
This article was first featured on lovingpho.com in April 2009. http://www.lovingpho.com/pho-opinioneditorial/history-and-evolution-of-vietnamesepho/
lime juice added in for taste. Outside of Vietnam many Vietnamese culinary experts have taken upon themselves to protect pho and help it retain its traditional identity. Pho has nonetheless taken on an adaptive nature. Many other versions of pho have emerged outside of Vietnam that contain seafood and pork and are called “pho” by their creators.
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Follow David Huynh on his journey to find the “perfect pho!”
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