INTRODUCE

With the balance between fresh herbs and meats and a selective use of spices to reach a fine taste, Vietnamese food can be considered one of the healthiest cuisines worldwide. Please come to Vietnam and you can enjoy many kinds of local food such as spring rolls, grilled shrimp paste, grilled minced fish, special noodle soup (pho), etc.

To really understand the flavors of Vietnam, it's helpful to look at a map first.

Shaped like an elongated S, the skinny country is about the size of Italy, with China to the north, Laos and Cambodia to the west, and the East Sea to the east. The 3,000-kilometer coastline snakes down, marked by Hanoi in the north, the rugged central highlands, the sprawling Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon) in the south, and the fertile Mekong delta ("the rice bowl of the country") at the bottom hook.

Vietnam is the second-largest rice exporter in the world (after Thailand). Rice is grown all over the country, so Rice appears at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert. There are many preparations of rice as rice noodles, pho, rice paper wrappers, rice porridge, fried rice,,, and rice wine.

The food of the north is heavily influenced by China with its stir-fries and noodle-based soups. As you move south, there's more flavor-blending with nearby Thailand and Cambodia. The tropical climate down south also sustains more rice paddies, coconut groves, jackfruit trees, and herb gardens. The food in southern Vietnam is typically sweeter: sweeter broths for pho, more palm sugar used in savory dishes, and those popular taffy-like coconut candies made with coconut cream.

It's hard to talk about Vietnamese food without mentioning French colonization, which began with missionaries arriving in the eighteenth century and didn't end until 1954. Clearly it had a lasting effect on the country, the people, the architecture, the land, and the flavors. Most obvious might be the banh mi, where the foundation is a crusty French baguette and the insides are often slathered with pâté. But the Vietnamese have taken this sandwich and made it entirely their own with grilled pork fillings, fish patties, sardines, cilantro, chili-spiked pickled carrots and daikon.

The freshness of each ingredient is crucial. Vietnamese food makes extensive use of fresh herbs, spices, and aromatics. Unripe fruits are considered more like vegetables. Crispity and crunchy, a green papaya and mango or banana flower becomes the base for salads instead of leafy greens. The unripe fruit-meat is usually a bit sour, pairing nicely with fish sauce, chili, garlic, dried shrimp, and finely chopped peanuts.

Ripe fruit, on the other hand, is sweet and wondrous. Instead of cakes or cookies for dessert, usually a meal ends with a hot teapot and big platter of indigenous tropical fruits. Slices of banana, mango, pineapple, watermelon (the redder the insides, the more good luck awarded to you!), dragonfruit, papaya, rambutans, and lychees.

You're not going to find much cheese, butter, or cream in Vietnam but the people still get their required dosages of calcium by way of fish bones and shells. No need to de-shell that shrimp tail, just pop the whole thing in your mouth. Mmm, crunchy.

This is just a basic introduction to Vietnamese food. Stay tuned for more...