Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Demystifying Vietnamese Food - A PRIMER ON INGREDIENTS, TECHNIQUES, AND EQUIPMENT
WHAT WE EAT
HOW WE EAT
COOKING TOOLS
PREPARATION TECHNIQUES
THE BASICS
RECIPES - A DRIVE DOWN BOLSA AVENUE
Salads and Soups - THE VIETNAMESE MARKETS
Simple Comfort Foods - THE ASIAN GARDEN MALL AND MOM-AND-POP RESTAURANTS
Noodle Soups - PH, H TIÊU, AND MÌ HOUSES
Vegetarian Dishes - THE BUDDHIST TEMPLES
Seafood Dishes - THE FISH MARKETS
Vietnamese Celebrations and Feasts - THE LAZY SUSAN
Festive Holiday Foods - TET, THE VIETNAMESE NEW YEAR
Desserts, Savory Treats, and Drinks - BAKERIES AND COFFEEHOUSES
Appendix A: - INGREDIENTS IN VIETNAMESE CUISINE
Appendix B: - RESOURCES AND LINKS
Appendix C: - SAMPLE MENUS
Appendix D: - METRIC CONVERSION TABLES
Index
About the Author
About the Photographer
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INSIDERS’GUIDE®
Copyright © 2006 by Ann Le
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or by the publisher. Requests for permission should be made in writing to The Globe Pequot Press. P.O. Box 480, Guilford, Connecticut 06437
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Text design by Nancy Freeborn
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Photo credits: pp. viii. xi. and 96 courtesy Ann Le: pp. 145 and 163 photos.com. All others © Julie Fay.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Le, Ann.
The little Saigon cookbook : Vietnamese cuisine and culture in Southern California’s little Saigon / Ann Le. - 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-7627-3831-6
1. Cookery. Vietnamese I. Title.
TX724.5.V5L42 2006
641.59597—dc22
2005024893
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition/First Printing
This book is dedicated to bà ngoai, Phu Dang.
For Mom, Bobo, Kim, and our family, and the people of Little Saigon
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the efforts, support, and existence of the following:
My editors, Cary Hull and Laura Strom. Cary’s the one who wrote the book. Thanks for telling me to try a little harder every time. You made it easy. Laura, thanks for your faith and support, and for simply being a wonderful person who happens to also be my editor.
The folks at Globe Pequot Press for teaching me so much.
Julie Fay, for the beautiful photography in this book. You are such a pleasure to work with.
Kim Fay, for supporting this book and everything Vietnamese.
Ong Du Mien, Professor Jeffrey Brody, and Derrick Nguyen, for sharing your stories, insights, and research. The community is lucky to have you as its participants and leaders.
Daniel Medina, for editing, proposal work, all kinds of support and hand-holding.
Johanna Wilkie, Tony Cronin, and Wesley Medina, for extra editing help, and especially Johanna for helping me clean up after those wild, hedonistic recipe-testing parties.
Cecilia De Robertis for editing, proposal help, and cheerleading.
Maya Lee, for top-notch professional and legal advice and friendship.
Astute recipe testers and contributors to the cookbook suggestion box: Dan, Lika, Twiggy, Johanna, Courtney, Cindy, Benjamin, Marianne and the Sanbongi family, Jules, Adam and Lynn, Aaron, Kayron, Cousin Long, Cousin Yen, Brother Kim. Yumna, Brittany, Brynn, Ken. Cousin Kathy, Mandy Kahn, Kramer, Maya, Sammy P., Lenora, Gabe, Ben Nicolas, and—last but not least—Irene Ribner. Thank you for your eating and for your friendships.
Norman Kolpas, for your generous help with my proposal and the introduction to the biz.
A million thanks for the cooperation and help from the establishments and people in Little Saigon, especially Chua Hue Quang, Thu Vien Vietnam, My Nguyen, Trieu Chau, Banh Mi Che Cali, and Pho Tau Bay.
I’m always grateful for my loving family, and in this case for recipes, support, and heartfelt stories.
And finally, thank you to the wonderful people of Little Saigon. The community and the people who make it up all serve as my inspiration.
During vuot bien, my family split into two different boats. Here are my grand-parents with just half of my family in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1975.
Introduction
There’s a rule followed by savvy diners looking for the ultimate in ethnic authenticity: Eat where the locals eat. The search for authentic Vietnamese food in the United States will always end in one community, Little Saigon, in Southern California’s Orange County. Here lies a spectacular enclave, built by extraordinary immigrants who started with virtually nothing. Today, in an area of roughly 3 square miles, Little Saigon is home to more than 4,000 Vietnamese American businesses and 200 restaurants—and the largest population of Vietnamese outside Vietnam.
Located fifteen minutes southwest of Disneyland and forty-five minutes southeast of downtown Los Angeles, Little Saigon is one of Orange County’s most exotic tourist attractions. People come from many miles around to this remarkable self-contained community to visit its Buddhist temples, its beautiful parks and historical monuments, and its one-of-a-kind shops selling jewelry, herbal medicines, and much more. But they also come—in droves—for the fabulous Vietnamese food served or sold at mom-and-pop restaurants, specialty bakeries, pho houses, sandwich delis, supermarkets, coffeehouses, and banquet-style restaurants.
For locals such as me and my-family, all the bustle of Little Saigon is simply our everyday world. But beneath the commerce and commotion lies a deeper reality that visitors to our enclave may not immediately see: The shops and eateries here have for years sustained their immigrant population nutritionally, emotionally, even spiritually. There is a history and rich culture to Little Saigon. And it’s the cuisine that ties it all together.
I wrote this book to preserve the recipes that the Vietnamese people—among them my own relatives—brought with us when we left Vietnam for the shores of our new homeland, America. I love my heritage, I love my family, I love Little Saigon, and, of course, I love the food that is so inextricably part of my world.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF LITTLE SAIGON
Not just another ethnic community, Little Saigon is an evolving culture and a living, breathing symbol of survival.
Between 1975 and 2000 more than two million Vietnamese fled their homeland. The first two waves of mass emigration are known as vuot bien (translated as “to flee by sea”). My parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles were among those who escaped Vie
tnam as boat people, leaving their homes just three days before the fall of Saigon in April 1975. Their escape was fueled by rumors of a Communist-led bloodbath.
Many of the South Vietnamese who remained in Vietnam after 1975 were sent to what the Hanoi government referred to as “reeducation camps.” The stories of those who survived these camps and are now living in the United States are being collected and archived within Little Saigon. According to their accounts, these prisoners were subjected to hard labor, given little to eat, sometimes tortured or killed. Many risked their lives to flee Vietnam by boat in another vuot bien that continued throughout the 1980s.
Archives and information on the reeducation camp experience can be found at the University of California-Irvine’s Southeast Asian Archive. Another organization, Boat People SOS, has been actively working with Vietnamese Americans to chronicle the stories of reeducation camp survivors, and to bring their experiences to the attention of the media and the government.
Once at sea, the refugees continued to suffer great hardship. Many left behind not only homes and possessions but also loved ones. Most found themselves in overcrowded wooden fishing and shrimp boats. Only the fortunate were picked up by larger boats; it is believed that more than half of the boat people died at sea.
Those who made it across the sea alive were settled in refugee camps across Asia, but these nations were unwilling to allow the refugees citizenship. President Gerald Ford then oversaw the passage of the Indochina Migration and Refugee Act of 1975, and the United States began airlifting refugees from camps all over Asia onto American soil. Literally overnight, military bases throughout the country became refugee camps. One of these was Camp Pendleton in Southern California, whose warm, sunny coastal climate reminded many Vietnamese of their lost homeland.
My grandma and her three daughters in Canh Tho, Vietnam, 1952.
In the 1970s Orange County, California, largely consisted of suburban, Caucasian, middle-class neighborhoods; it also had abundant farmland. The cities of Westminster and Garden Grove—both close to Camp Pendleton—weren’t sharing in the otherwise widespread abundance, however. Many longtime residents had been forced to seek work elsewhere, leaving behind their homes, farms, and businesses. In 1979 commercial rents in these areas were only thirty-five cents per square foot. (Today, by contrast, they’re thirty-five dollars per square foot!)
As the Vietnamese refugees began to leave Camp Pendleton to take up their new lives, most stayed in the area they’d come to enjoy. All of them, however, had to deal with severe time and money constraints when it came to feeding themselves and their families. With limited English skills and no American job skills or training, options were few.
Yet one thing almost all of the former boat people could do was cook. With cheap real estate available in Westminster and Garden Grove—especially the storefronts along the Bolsa Avenue strip—the idea of opening up a restaurant became viable for many. Some of the very first “restaurants” were set up in the dining room of a cook’s own home. These simple restaurants eventually became places where friends and neighbors who were working long hours could find inexpensive, home-cooked meals.
The name Little Saigon, of course, honors the former capital of South Vietnam. After the war, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City. Calling their adopted California community “Little Saigon” is one way that Vietnamese refugees keep the old Saigon of Vietnam alive in their hearts. Indeed, some half dozen commemorative events are held each year on April 30— the anniversary of Saigon’s fall.
I was one of these diners. My parents used to work until eight thirty every night at their business in the community, and it was cheaper for our family to eat at restaurants around Little Saigon than it would have been to buy groceries and cook at home. So we patronized our neighborhood eateries, ordering spring rolls, egg rolls, simple rice dishes with grilled meat, noodle salads, and porridges. Not only did these comfort dishes help meet our cravings for home, but they also provided a simple, well-balanced meal for those of us pinching pennies.
It did not take many years before those Vietnamese refugees who concentrated in Westminster and Garden Grove developed the area into the dynamic enclave we see today. In June 1988, California Governor Deukmejian officially designated the area of Bolsa Avenue between Ward and Magnolia Avenues as “Little Saigon.”
A PORTRAIT OF LITTLE SAIGON
The Vietnamese community has thrived in America, and with it Little Saigon has expanded as far north as the 22 Freeway, the 405 Freeway to the south, Beach Boulevard on the west, and Harbor Boulevard on the east. Yet little 3-mile Bolsa Avenue, the birthplace of our neighborhood, remains its heart, soul—and, of course, stomach!
If you come to visit Little Saigon, you will be surrounded everywhere along this avenue by the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of Vietnam—and the lively culture of the Vietnamese. You’ll see long lines of laughing, talking shoppers snaking out the doors of fresh food markets. Twenty-five- and fifty-pound bags of jasmine rice line the front doorways, while cell phones and lottery tickets are sold next to them in designated booths. Vietnamese pop music blares throughout the stores. Just a few feet farther down the street, you can join the throng at a pho house, where you may find yourself sharing a table with complete strangers. Soup and an appropriate salad platter will be brought to you within minutes of ordering. At these and most Little Saigon restaurants, you’ll eat with plasticware; napkins are distributed from a dispenser, and the furnishings and cookware are old and well worn. Things can seem cluttered. All of this may strike visitors as a bit lowbrow, but there is undeniable charm and character here as well.
Spiritual life in the form of Buddhism and Catholicism pervades our enclave. More than fifty Buddhist houses of worship dot Little Saigon, many of them simply ranch houses transformed through prayer and statuary; others are magnificent temples. Weekend worship and activity are never solemn or quiet. Churches, temples, and shrines along Bolsa Avenue all bustle with commotion and laughter.
Continue down the street and you can peek into a banquet restaurant where families and friends find any excuse to celebrate with food. Tables are traditionally round; with no one sitting at head or foot, there is no pride of place here. A lazy Susan in the middle of each table ensures equal access to the feast. Outside, fishmongers sell seafood only minutes away from the ocean. Bakeries and coffeehouses serve as centers of sustenance, community, and sweet treats with a Vietnamese twist.
What you’ll rarely see on the streets of Little Saigon are Vietnamese people on their own, without a friend or even stranger to talk to. The Vietnamese move in packs; it is part of our culture to take pictures together, eat together, do everything together. If someone is ever alone, she is deep in contemplation, or reading a book or the newspaper. And she isn’t alone for long.
LITTLE SAIGON CUISINE
Bona fide Vietnamese food—the kind you can always count on finding in Little Saigon—is simple and traditional, yet it also satisfies the adventurous food lover. It is characterized by a balance of understated flavors emphasizing freshness, while its uniqueness lies in its essential ingredients—above all, fish sauce and fresh herbs and vegetables. Vietnamese flavors are deep, yet subtle and not as heavy and rich as Thai or Indian foods. The cuisine is known for its delicate and healthful dishes, many of which are vegetarian. There is a healthy reliance on steamed rice, and steaming in general is very popular. Meat and fish are not often considered main courses, but simply one part of the family’s evening meal. Vietnamese food uses little oil; we prefer to saute foods in their own juices rather than adding more oil. Even dipping sauces and salad dressings are citrus-based.
Vietnam
Looked at as a whole, the Vietnamese table is a conglomeration of Vietnam’s three regional cuisines. Vietnam is separated geographically into three distinct areas: the North, the Central, and the South, with Hanoi, Hue, and Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) as their respective major cities. Rice is the most important part of a Vietnamese meal in all thr
ee regions. North Vietnam, near China’s border, has dishes influenced by the Chinese. Central Vietnam’s more temperate weather, as well as significant coastlines, yields a variety of lush crops. South Vietnam, with more coastline and the Mekong River system, provides more seafood and an array of tropical foodstuffs. The majority of this book’s recipes come from the South Vietnamese culinary tradition.
Many people think of Vietnamese food as French-influenced. Or Cambodian-or Chinese-influenced. It’s true that Vietnam was occupied by other countries for centuries, and the results of these foreign influences are evident in Vietnamese food. However, the cuisine is not so much a conglomeration of the different influences as it is a showcase of the best of these other cuisines, including breads and pastries inspired by the French, stir-fried wok dishes from the Chinese, and curries that originated in Cambodia. All these influences—from within and without Vietnam itself—are apparent in Little Saigon, as you will see (and taste) in the chapters to come.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
The Little Saigon Cookbook is arranged in chapters that each highlight a cultural point or attraction of Little Saigon. All are based around Bolsa Avenue, the community’s lifeline. Along the way, your culinary tour of Little Saigon will bring you fresh-baked treats from the bakeries; crunchy, tangy chicken and cabbage salad made from fresh ingredients found at the Asian markets; picture-perfect arrangements of vermicelli noodles with grilled lemongrass beef from the Asian Garden Mall; vegetarian delights from a Buddhist temple; perfectly braised pork in a caramel sauce served at Tet. the Vietnamese New Year; grilled beef with lemongrass and garlic from a wedding reception’s lazy Susan; iced Vietnamese coffee from the local coffeehouse; and that famous meal-in-a-bowl, the pho soup served in noodle houses.
The Little Saigon Cookbook: Vietnamese Cuisine and Culture in Southern California's Little Saigon Page 1