We should give fusion cuisine a chance. That last sentence probably lost me a third of our readers and the remaining few are already furrowing their brows. Hear me out, readers! Sure, fusion food is the work of the devil and even this discussion is a heresy against my Vietnamese roots, but don’t get me wrong–I love Vietnamese home cooking as much as anyone. But we should at least understand how fusion has influenced Vietnamese dishes and its place in present day cuisine.
Take a close look at some beloved classics of Vietnamese cuisine, say Banh Mi and Pho, and we will find likely examples of fusion food. Banh Mi is a clear product of French and Vietnamese cuisine melding together. It wasn’t until the 19th century that a few enterprising shops in Vietnam began serving French Baugettes with pate and Vietnamese cured meats, thus creating a (now) classic Vietnamese dish. The story of Pho shows similar roots. Prior to the 19th century, cows in Vietnam were not regularly slaughtered for food. It wasn’t until the beginning of French influence did we see beef make its way into Vietnamese cuisine. As beef became readily available in Vietnam, it helped spark the evolution of Pho in northern Vietnam that eventually spread to the rest of the country.
What we can see is that cuisine isn’t static. It evolves. Food traditionalists want to evoke a memory from their meal – a reminder of home, wanting it made the way Vietnamese food “should be”. But that relies on the time period and context. How can we be sure that what defines Vietnamese cuisine today will be the same as in 200 years? Essentially, fusion food is experimentation. No one knows what the next big thing in Vietnamese cuisine will be but we can be sure that something will arise.
The one critique of fusion food I can understand is price. Yes, fusion food tends to be expensive. But hey, most of us choose to buy Apple’s pricier gadgets over PCs too. Let’s not tear down these entrepreneurs for trying a new product. Take for example Spicekit, a new restaurant in San Francisco focused on creating Banh Mi built on local, fresh quality ingredients; it’s a blend of Bay Area sensibilities with Vietnamese tastes. And honestly, if I’m willing to spend $6 for a bland turkey sandwich in a deli, why would I not consider paying $8 for a Spicekit sandwich that is several orders of magnitude better?
Vietnamese cuisine doesn’t need to be cheap to be better. Let’s think about it this way – we’ve all paid $10 for a hamburger, but we’ve all been to In-n-Out too (or Five Guys for those you on the East Coast). Now, we all love In-N-Out, but did we harbor any ill feeling towards that hamburger we paid more for? Probably not. It’s hard to compare because it’s a different product. The same should go for Vietnamese food. We shouldn’t have a standard of “cheap is better”, because that’s not necessarily true.
One of the great things about the U.S. is that we have room to innovate. We are pretty fortunate to be surrounded by great food of every culture, and naturally there’s going to be cross-pollenation and experimentation occuring. We shouldn’t try to stifle this, but embrace it as something uniquely American. So while we wait for the next big fusion food discovery, I’ll be at a Taqueria somewhere in LA enjoying a generous plate of carne asada fries.
Beef introduction into Việt Nam was much earlier than the French colonial days. It was from the Mongolians; 13th century.
Okay, OneVietnam is getting lame. As soon as I read the part says “It wasn’t until the beginning of French influence did we see beef make its way into Vietnamese cuisine”, I just wanted to jump off my chair. My grandfather who lived in the North way before the French came could attest that he enjoyed Pho Bo` and a lot more dishes with bo` when he was young, again before the French came. Sometime “thit bo” being replaced by “thit trau” for cheaper prices, but definitely Vietnamese people know to eat cows way before the French come along. Unfortunately my grandfather has passed away because he’s too old now (if he still lives, he would be over 130 years old). You better get your facts straight before you write something. At least provide a source so we know who is the real stupid person.
I also don’t think the Mongolians introduce beef to Vietnam either. Vietnam was under Chinese power for a long time and multiple times even before the Mongolians try to invade. Plus, the Mongolians couldn’t even set their feet into Vietnam thanks to General Tran Hung Dao. I’m not making a claim but the Vietnamese could be eating cow/beef by their own discovery, but it’s a possibility because it’s not that hard to kill your own cow or water buffalo for dinner.
Articles like this are damaging the reputation for One Vietnam. It looks like its sole purpose is to advertise for Spicekit, some kind of restaurant in San Francisco.
Maybe it could be the soup broth that influenced by French cuisine, but you need some kind of source to show that the French introduced beef to Vietnam. My grandfather told my father that Pho originates from Nam Dinh. The name came from a Chinese term for “rice”, pronounce something like “pha^?n”.
I must confess that I could barely read this article because of the same type of reaction that I felt had as the commenters above. To say that the french introduced the baguette and that in turn created the now ubiquitous banh mi; but it is another to say that the french introduced beef to Vietnamese cuisine. The type of cow used for milk (we we don’t tend to keep) are generally solely kept for that purpose and cows used for beef is a different type that doesnt produce milk. So in drawing your conclusion, did it make sense to say that we kept beef-cows but didn’t consume them and since we can’t milk them…were they just expensive pets or grass cutters?
I found this site through my twitter, and I was quite excited to find such a site that is geared towards younger Vietnamese Americans. However, after such articles as this, and the performance art one and the few other ones that not only lacked in substance but fact checking. I have to say that this site is a disappointment. Also, on another note, I get a sense that this site is VC friendly. I hope you are not, but gut says otherwise.
Real smart Viet, if they were VC friendly, they would be trashing the French, not saying they invented our food…
Real smart Huy Pham, if they were VC friendly, they would approve your your linear logic….
Huy,
Why would only VC friendly person trash the French? Back then when the French people were colonizing our country, VC, non-VC, Vietnam Cong Hoa party, and all other parties were altogether fighting against the French. So, trashing the French doesn’t mean anything.
apologies for the above post chock-full of bad grammar—less than 4 hours of sleep past 2 days.
The Mongolians did set foot to Việt Nam but not long; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Vietnam.
Ok, this could be due to the “word play”. If by “setting foot”, you mean that they made a “pass through”, then you win 🙂 One of their food supply ship was captured, that could be when the Vietnamese discovered about frozen or dried beef… but I don’t think they were bringing cows with them to Vietnam (maybe they were, who knows…). Again, this is all from guess and I’m really interested in some source that explicitly says who introduced beef to Vietnam. Vietnamese got beef!
Agree. Việt Nam does have cows in ancient time but eating them was not of primary source of meat due to our agricultural needs of using cows for labor. Perhaps (need to research more) the Mongolians introduced the concept of various beef preparations in cooking. By the way, the word “beef” does not have to come from cow. In this regard, eating beef may date back much older (large animals like cows, water buffalo, the long horn zebu from India — considering silk route trading with India) … all speculation on my part but definitely not the beef from the French like this article suggests.
Got Rice?!? =)