So far we've eaten hummus in the Middle East, soda bread in Ireland, and rice and beans in Haiti. Next up, let's make our way East with a trip to...VIETNAM!
Vietnamese cuisine is typically admired for its emphasis on healthy and fresh ingredients. It can be broken up into three categories, based on the region it is from. Northern Vietnamese food is probably most similar to what you would expect to find in a Vietnamese restaurant, as northern Vietnam was the cradle of Vietnamese culture. It gave rise to popular dishes such as pho and banh cuon or a rolled cake. Southern Vietnamese food, in contrast, was greatly influenced by the Chinese and French and so it tends to emphasize sweeter flavors and utilizes a wider variety of herbs. Central Vietnamese cuisine veers from the aforementioned two in that it typically consists of a lot of smaller dishes...kind of like a Vietnamese tapas. It is also usually the most spicy of the three.
Feel free to check out this Wikipedia site for inspiration, as well as this, this, this, and this.
Please email me (jhbruno87@gmail.com) your submissions by May 31!
