Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Food is at the very core of Vietnamese culture: every significant holiday on the Vietnamese
cultural calendar, all the important milestones in a Vietnamese person's life, and indeed,
most of the important day-to-day social events and interactions - food plays a central role
in each.
Special dishes are prepared and served with great care for every birth, marriage and death,
and the anniversaries of ancestors' deaths. More business deals are struck over dinner
tables than over boardroom tables, and when friends get together, they eat together. Preparing
food and eating together remains the focus of family life.
Vietnamese cuisine varies slightly from region to region, with many regions having their
own specialties. Generally, northern Vietnamese cuisine is known for being bland, while southern
Vietnamese cuisine is known for being spicy.
At the same time, the Vietnamese are surprisingly modest about their cuisine. High-end restaurants
tend to serve "Asian-fusion" cuisine, with elements of Thai, Japanese, and Chinese mixed
in. The most authentic Vietnamese food is found at street side "restaurants" (a collection
of plastic outdoor furniture placed on the footpath), with most walk-in restaurants being
mainly for tourists. Definite regional styles exist -- northern, central, and southern,
each with unique dishes.
Many Vietnamese dishes are flavoured with fish sauce, which smells and tastes like anchovies
(quite salty and fishy) straight from the bottle, but blends into food very well. Fish
sauce is also mixed with lime juice, sugar, water, and spices to form a tasty dip/condiment
called nuoc cham, served on the table with most meals.