Vietnam is a culturally diverse country located in Southeast Asia with a history of influences from China and France. It is divided into three main regions - North, Central, and South - which have distinct climates and food traditions. Northern Vietnam favors lighter flavors like pho soup, while Central Vietnam enjoys more decorative dishes reflecting royal traditions. Southern Vietnam's cuisine incorporates influences from the French and Chinese, including banh mi sandwiches. Vietnamese cuisine emphasizes balance according to the five elements of wood, fire, earth, water, and metal to promote health. A visit to a local pho restaurant demonstrated minimalist yet flavorful dishes and opportunities to modify recipes by substituting ingredients like tofu for pork to reduce fat.

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Vietnam
Megan Hall, Adrienne Velasquez
California Polytechnic University of Pomona

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Vietnam is one of the most culturally influenced countries to date; however, when most
people think Vietnamese, they immediately think pho without knowing its background. With that
said, Vietnam is divided into three sections, thus, allowing us to explore three parts of the
country that both have several distinguishing characteristics. By the end of this report, one will
have obtained information about Vietnam, Vietnamese cultural practices, Vietnamese food, and
finally personal modifications to a Vietnamese dish. Before diving right into the food, first let we
will discuss the background of the country.
Vietnam is located on the Southeast tip of Asia, adjacent to Thailand and Malaysia.
Currently, Vietnam is one of the most densely populated countries in that region holding 92.5
people. (World Bank, 2014) In terms of finances, Vietnam is considered to be slightly poor, but
make up for their lack of money through the richness in flavor of their food. Vietnam is home to
more than just Vietnamese people, but the Chinese are the largest minority group in the area.
Along with Chinese, they recognize roughly 54 ethnic groups, Viet being the largest of those
groups. The country divides into two different climate ranges, tropical in the south and
monsoonal in the north. These distinct differences in climate affect the availability of
ingredients, thus further impacting their cultural food practices. Majority of the country does not
follow any sort of religion; however, Buddhism and Christianity account for less than 10% of the
population. (CIA, 2014) Regardless of their non-religious ways, there were many influences on
food, the most significant being its history.
The lovely country of Vietnam is known to be one of the oldest countries of Southeast
Asia. According to the Worldmark Encyclopedia, Vietnam dates back as early as the first
millennium b.c. with the formation of what is known today as The Bronze Age civilization,

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previously located in Northern Vietnam by the Red River Delta. Northern Vietnam was known
for their rice farming and use of slash and burn. (Lockhart, Duiker, 2006) Vietnam was then
conquered in the 3rd century b.c. by the Chinese who took the Red River Delta into its own
kingdom. Shortly after, Vietnam was then integrated into the Chinese empire expansion at which
they were under Chinese rule for roughly 1,000 years. By the year a.d. 939, Vietnam was able to
gain their national independence for a few years until they were under Chinese rule in the 15th
century. (N.A. 2014) Through their national independence came two great dynasties, the Ly and
the Tran, which helped expand their regions to the Mekong River. Consequences arose from
expansion and resulted in a civil war between the north and the south predominantly due to the
Trinh and Nguyen families which then separated them politically. Vietnam was also ruled by the
French Indo-Chinese union which influenced the cuisine greatly. Another factor that influenced
the Vietnamese culture was the rise of Huế, which dominated the majority of Southern Vietnam
from the 17th to the 19th century. (Woodside, 1988) All these historical events have left imprints
on each region of Vietnam in many ways, specifically their cuisine and methods of eating.
Vietnamese cuisine has been altered in certain regions due to the history and climate. For
instance, Northern Vietnam, where civilization originated still keep to its hearty soup known as
phở, mainly due to colder temperatures. The northern region’s flavoring are less bold in
comparison to other regions, focusing on light and well balanced flavors. Meat in the north is
much less available, however seafood is plentiful allowing the widespread use of the like. In this
region most of the food is flavored via soy sauce, prawn sauce, fish sauce, and lime showing the
use of their seafood in various ways. (Ferro, 1999) The central region of Vietnam is known for
the amount of head packed into the dish. The abundant amount of spices are provided by the
central highlands of Vietnam. As stated earlier, there was the rise of Huế which significantly

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influenced their methods of eating in central Vietnam. Central Vietnam’s dishes are typically of
smaller portions representing its dedication to the kings. The food is also much more decorative
to represent ancient royal practices. Moving down Vietnam, the climates get warmer which
enriches the soil allowing a variety of crops to be grown. Southern Vietnam’s cuisine is the most
influenced by outside factors, being the French and Chinese. (Tran, 2000) In this region, it is
common to find banh mi. Banh mi incorporates the French baguette, altered by using rice flour.
They frequently use garlic, herbs, and shallots in their cooking along with something sweet. Not
only is this region blessed with fertile soil, but they are also blessed with an abundance of aquatic
life to provide them with plenty of seafood. All in all, Vietnam is considered to be living in
poverty. Though they are rich in agriculture, they struggle to feed their nation, thus resulting in
cheaper food among all regions. Furthermore, fish sauce and rice are both staples found in every
region of the country. While climate and previous wars influence the food, the Vietnamese
philosophically believe in the balance of five elements.
The five elements is a religious practice in Vietnam adopted by the Chinese. This
incorporates five basic elements: wood, fire, earth, water, and metal. Each of these correspond to
a certain balancing of each in order to keep digestive health in order. As stated in Ethnomed,
“The flow of energy in our bodies are thought to follow the same principle from water
nourishing wood, wood brings fire, fire forms ashes (earth), and earth solidify to form metal.”
which shows the dependency of each element to regulate one another. Practiced with this is the
art of yin and yang, mainly through the balance of hot and cold. An excess in one without a
proper balance from the other results in sickness. For example, an excess in something cold
would lead to pain and cramps. These philosophical practices sway them to focus their ways of

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medicine through food. Reading about their use of balance was not enough to understand, so to
elaborate on their ways of cooking we dined out at a local pho restaurant.
Pho Kitchen is a modest restaurant located in West Covina, which is roughly 15 minutes
away from Cal Poly. At this restaurant we ordered pho, a beef noodle soup incorporating rice
noodles, onions, slices of beef, and a mild broth. They placed bean sprouts, chili, lime, and mint
leaves to the side as an option to enhance the flavor of our food. Along with this dish, we ordered
spring rolls, commonly known as gỏi cuốn in Vietnam. This dish consisted of rice noodles, rice
paper, shrimp, a slice of meat, and lettuce. We chose these dishes to observe the tameness of
flavors, but also to observe the ability to create such flavorful dishes with minimal amount of
money. In terms of Adrienne’s heritage, it was easy for her to adapt to the taste of peanuts, fish
sauce, and spices. Vietnam and the Philippines are rather close in terms of location, thus there is
a great similarity in food. Both countries enjoy the use of salt and fat to flavor their dishes, thus
allowing us to think of ways to modify this certain dish.
Spring rolls, though appearing healthy may be modified in a few ways. With regard to
TLC, one could replace the pork with marinated tofu. This cuts the amount of fat by nearly half,
from 9 grams of fat to 4.5 grams. Another way to cut out the amount of fat incorporated into the
dish is by the peanut satay. The peanut satay may be replaced with fish sauce a common
ingredient in Vietnamese food. Other available sauces may be hoisin sauce or sriracha, which is
readily available at most Vietnamese restaurants anyway It may not have the same flavor profile,
but it is a familiar taste to Vietnamese people and is easily accessible. Just by substituting the
sauce, one may cut down roughly 2-4 grams of fat to absolutely 0 grams. It was interesting to see
that two ingredients could alter the amount of fat in a dish by a significant amount. There were
many other things that were interesting to learn about the Vietnamese culture.

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Vietnam is one of the more interesting cultures we have learned about. What was
particularly interesting was the segregated regions of the country due to wars as well as the
climate change. It was as though the flavors would get bolder and the colors would get brighter
the lower one traveled in the country. Another interesting aspect to their culture was their lack of
money that was compensated by the richness in flavors of their dish. They are the true definition
of resourcefulness, manipulating things such as rice and seafood. It is similar to the way
Americans manipulate corn into a multitude of things. Furthermore, we were impressed to say
the least about all the aspects of the culture. It was interesting to read about the emphasis of
balance and how that dealt with sickness in their views. It was also very intriguing to read about
the outside influences on their culture, such as the French, Chinese, and Indonesians. This report
showed that one truly does not know all there is to a country by merely eating at their restaurant,
but rather shows that there is a significance and history behind each ingredient.

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CITATIONS
N.A., (
Smith, M. (2013, September 20). Vietnamese Cuisine: The 5 Elements. Retrieved October 26,
2014, from http://news.freedomasia.co.uk/vietnamese-cuisine-the-5-
elements/3230/#.VE1n84vF9bx
Woodside, Alexander (1988). Vietnam and the Chinese model: a comparative study of
Vietnamese and Chinese government in the first half of the nineteenth century. Harvard
Univ Asia Center. p. 127