Vietnamese Food

Phở

All throughout the book Bich mentions a lot of Vietnamese food. One thing they eat with almost every meal is white rice. The funny thing is, the cook who worked in the Holiday Inn restaurant didn't know how to make it when her grandmother asked for it once. She talks about Phở, which is a noodle soup with clear broth. On Tet (Vietnamese New Year) they eat special food including Bánh chưng a sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves and stuffed with mung bean paste and black pepper. I have tried this before and in my opinion it's fairly good, I like the sticky consistency of the rice. They also eat Bánh bao, which are doughy white balls stuffed with sweet Chinese sausage. When Bich's family learns that her step mom is pregnant they throw a big party. There is lots of special food prepared for it in advance. Some of it includes Chả giò, deep fried flour rolls filled with pork, yam, crab, shrimp, rice vermicelli, mushrooms, and other ingredients. Also Gỏi cuốn, rice paper rolls that often include shrimp, herbs, pork, rice vermicelli and other ingredients wrapped up and dipped in nước chấm or peanut sauce. I've never had those but they look really good and I want to try them sometime. Bánh xèo are savory pancakes made of rice flour, water, turmeric powder, and stuffed with slivers of fatty pork, shrimp, and bean sprouts which is all then pan fried. There is of course lots of other food, but Bich wrote an entire book talking about it so clearly this blog post would go on for too long. All the things she mentions you can now easily cook at home. You can search for all these recipes online and come up with multiple results. The ingredients can be found at a plethora of Asian markets in the Grand Rapids area. For the less adventurous there are different Vietnamese restaurants in the Grand Rapids area as well, including Lai Thai Kitchen. 


To learn more about Vietnamese food visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_cuisine
http://www.vietnamese-recipes.com/

Chả giò

Bánh bao

Bánh xèo