Food for thought

Le Nguyen

Local fare: Visitors sample banh cuon, one of the Vietnamese specialties presented at the Hanoian Food Festival at West Lake Water Park. — VNS Photo Le Nguyen

HA NOI — We eat to live, not live to eat, said French playwright Moliere, but given cultural and historical value associated with food, it could be argued we also eat to learn.

In the case of Ha Noi, which this week celebrates its 1,000th birthday, the city's rich history is reflected in its culinary traditions and wealth of dishes and delicacies.

For those who are hungry to learn more about Ha Noi, the city is holding a food fair at West Lake Park to mark its millennium.

There are more than 130 stalls featuring mainly Hanoian fare that will be open for the hungry until next Monday.

But foodies will face the perennial problem of how to sample as much as they want with the limited capacity of their inner chambers.

Walking from stall to stall just to have a look, I found a wide range from familiar bun (rice vermicelli) to strange dishes like fried crickets.

I had to be very selective so I would not regret the choices I made.

I first sampled banh duc (plain rice flan). For me, the white pasty pastry served with fried pork mixed with peziza, pepper and nuoc mam (fish sauce) looked a bit different and strange so I thought it was worth a try.

And I was right. The hot pastry, which was scooped into a small bowl, was so soft and fine it easily melted in my mouth.

"Making the pastry is a painstaking process," said chef Tran Van Khanh from the Holiday Ha Noi Hotel.

"It takes two hours of constantly stirring the rice flour at a steady pace in a thick pot on top of a small fire to ensure the pastry doesn't burn and curdle," he added.

Difficult as it is to make, the pastry is no more than a small snack that satiates hunger for only a short while.

"In the past, Hanoians made banh duc for their main meals to save rice in times of hunger," said the chef, "It became very common during the great starvation in 1945."

"It is best when served hot in the mornings during cold seasons," he added.

However, it's not easy for visitors to find the pastry in Ha Noi because it is only available in certain locations, said Nguyen Manh Cuong, 29, who lives on Dong Ngac Street.

The easy-to-eat snack afforded enough energy for me to continue my tour of the stalls.

For the main course, I stopped at a bun cha stall because the smell of the cha, (minced pork grilled) was so enticing.

"You can smell the aroma of the grilled pork from a great distance," said Doan Thi Thu, an octogenarian native of Ha Noi who lives on Bach Mai Street.

"Cooks have to fan the charcoal continuously to create a lot of smoke that consumes the pork," she said, "When it is served, the pork looks tender with melted fat marbled through the meat."

Although a big fan of bun chaû and having eaten it many times, Thu did not want to miss the chance to relive her childhood with bun cha served on a flat winnowing basket covered with la dong (phrynium leaves).

Bun (rice vermicelli), rau song (fresh vegetables), pork and fish sauce which make up bun cha are all staple ingredients of Vietnamese food.

"The fish sauce, after being mixed with vinegar, sugar, garlic and pepper, becomes a perfect sweet and sour accompaniment for bun cha," Thu said.

A cup of tao phoù, a popular Hanoian streetside drink which is made of tofu served with syrup and ice, is perfect for refreshment. It is cool and sweet.

"I hope Ha Noi will continue to serve lots of yummy food," said Australian John Kis, who has lived in Ha Noi for more than a year, noting that Hanoian food is pleasantly spicy and involves many fresh ingredients. — VNS

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Bun cha, Hanoi’s ‘most precious’

It is hard to find someone with greater knowledge of food and culture in Hanoi than writer Thach Lam.

In his famous work, Hanoi - 36 Old Quarters, a rustic Confucian scholar, upon smelling bun cha, or rice noodles with grilled pork patties, during his first visit to the capital, breaks into verse: “In 1000-year-old Thang Long, is it the most precious object?”

Bun cha, served with small, savory, crispy, caramelized pork and thin rice vermicelli on a bed of fresh vegetables and mixed fish sauce, is considered one of Hanoi’s 15 quintessential noodle dishes.

Central to it are the tiny grilled cha vien (pork patties) or cha mieng (fatty pork slices) or both.

Bun cha uses ground pork shaped into a meatball. When meat is thinly sliced or shaped into a ball, it must have a small portion of fat to keep its juices when grilling. Traditionally, pork shoulder is a perfect choice for cooking this dish because it is naturally firm meat and has the ideal proportion of fat.

Well-marinated meat is skewed on a bamboo stick or placed on a barbecue and grilled on charcoal.

The two kinds of cha sometimes arrive on separate plates and are dipped in a mixture of fish sauce, vinegar, chili, and garlic, sometimes with lightly pickled green papaya and carrot.

The smoky, savory caramelized pork pieces are dipped in the sauce and eaten along with the noodles.

The fish sauce mixture plays an important role in blending the tastes and flavors. Making it is considered as an art by itself. For instance, if the pork turns out to be salty, less fish sauce is used, and vice versa.

These are accompanied by a basket of fresh herbs and vegetables whose contents vary from place to place. But the most common are small lettuces, bean spouts, curled shredded morning glory stems, cilantro, and other minty, spicy herbs.

The vegetables and rice vermicelli are arranged in a single plate.

Some chase the vermicelli and meat down with a crunchy piece of lettuce or zesty herb. Others choose the wrap and dip approach, using the lettuce to bundle up some bun, a piece of pork, and some herbs and dunking the package in the broth before biting on it.

The classic accompaniment to bun cha is nem (spring rolls), which are a combination of minced pork, vermicelli, mushrooms, and bean spouts. They are made by being wrapped like an egg roll in rice paper and fried. They can usually be ordered with beer in Hanoi.

Though the origin of bun cha is not clearly known, it has for long been a popular dish that can be found on a traditional shoulder pole at street corners as well as in restaurants around Vietnam and in Vietnamese restaurants abroad.

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