Vietnamese Food - Good vs. bad

[Phieu]

Originally Posted by Miss Saigon

Although I find that most Vietnamese restaurants in the US serve a large number of Chinese dishes in an effort to be more recognizable to the American customer. It is not uncommon to find far more Chinese dishes on the menu in a Vietnamese restaurant than Vietnamese in the US. After all. They need to make money so they must tailor their offerings to what American customers expect.

I bet you the owners and cooks of those Vietnamese restaurants are ethnic Chinese-Vietnamese (who can speak Chinese) versus Vietnamese-Vietnamese (who cannot speak Chinese).

[Salinator]

Originally Posted by Phieu

I bet you the owners and cooks of those Vietnamese restaurants are ethnic Chinese-Vietnamese (who can speak Chinese) versus Vietnamese-Vietnamese (who cannot speak Chinese).

You are trying too hard. There is no such thing as a Vietnamese-Vietnamese.........that is pure nonsense.

[Phieu]

Originally Posted by Salinator

You are trying too hard. There is no such thing as a Vietnamese-Vietnamese.........that is pure nonsense.

I did clarify with (who can speak Chinese) and [I](who cannot speak Chinese).[/I.].
I should have clarified further in saying (who can and still speak Chinese at home) and (who cannot and do not speak Chinese at home)

Does that make more sense ?

[Salinator]

Originally Posted by Phieu

I did clarify with (who cannot speak Chinese)., if you understand what I mean...

Again, nonsense. How about American-American food cooked by those who do not speak Chinese? You know what I mean.....

[lirelou]

Balut is the philippine version. Yes, the wife eats lots of duck eggs, and properly aged chicken and quail eggs as well. But the legendary Blue Duck egg is alive and well in the Mekong. The hey also eat these in Taiwan. The proper way to eat it is to use the sulhpurous smelling thing to make a sauce that food is dipped into. No one told me that when I was in Taiwan, and I accepted the challenge to eat one whole. Yecchh!

Oh, yeah, the "100 year old duck egg" is also a southern Chinese specialty.

You can find dog meat restaurants throughout Vietnam now, especially in areas where our favorite ****ies were resettled after 1975.

[Phieu]

Originally Posted by Salinator

Again, nonsense. How about American-American food cooked by those who do not speak Chinese? You know what I mean.....

I don't talk about Chinese-Vietnamese versus Vietnamese-Vietnamese food, rather about acculturation in general and "vietnamization" in particular of Chinese who immigrated to Vietnam.

There are Chinese who immigrated to Vietnam and decided to hold on to their Chinese roots (language, culture, identity...) and those who had decided to abandon their Chinese roots (language, culture, identity....) and became Vietnamese-Vietnamese.

Hope this make more sense to you ...

[Salinator]

Originally Posted by Phieu

I don't talk about Chinese-Vietnamese versus Vietnamese-Vietnamese food, rather about acculturation in general and "vietnamization" in particular of Chinese who immigrated to Vietnam.

There are Chinese who immigrated to Vietnam and decided to hold on to their Chinese roots (language, culture, identity...) and those who had decided to abandon their Chinese roots (language, culture, identity....) and became Vietnamese-Vietnamese.

Hope this make more sense to you ...

Sad that you chose a thread about food to flaunt your nationalism, twisted as it is.

I will not corrupt this thread as you would. Bring it to another thread.

[altus]

Soviet missile officers in North Vietnam reportedly did not appreciate dog meat delicacies served to them by their North Vietnamese apprentices, especially when advised what was their meal two days after consumption.

[Phieu]

Originally Posted by Salinator

Sad that you chose a thread about food to flaunt your nationalism, twisted as it is.

I will not corrupt this thread as you would. Bring it to another thread.

The two issues are intimitaly related. Food reflects the culture of the people who serve it.
Are you so narrow-minded?... If that's the case, you should not venture commenting about food as a connaisseur... instead of insulting me ...
Don't you notice that some restaurants arbore a big sign: "We serve here AUTHENTIC Vietnamese cuisine" ? What it means is it's served by Vietnamese-Vietnamese and not Chinese-Vietnamese...

[Leonardo63]

Originally Posted by lirelou

Balut is the philippine version. Yes, the wife eats lots of duck eggs, and properly aged chicken and quail eggs as well. But the legendary Blue Duck egg is alive and well in the Mekong. The hey also eat these in Taiwan. The proper way to eat it is to use the sulhpurous smelling thing to make a sauce that food is dipped into. No one told me that when I was in Taiwan, and I accepted the challenge to eat one whole. Yecchh!

Oh, yeah, the "100 year old duck egg" is also a southern Chinese specialty.

You can find dog meat restaurants throughout Vietnam now, especially in areas where our favorite ****ies were resettled after 1975.

I'm sorry-but given a choice between Balut or Lassie- Woof! Woof! ... Pic alone is a gagger. you are one serious baddass LL!

[Pruitt]

Just how do you define "Vietnamese"? I have met a number of people that say they are Vietnamese, but are actually ethnic Cambodians. Also there are the Hill tribes?

"Authentic" can have numerous meanings. In Louisiana we can have Asians and Hispanics cooking "authentic" Cajun food...My mother cooked what she called Gumbo. My ex-wife, the Cajun curled her lip at it and called it tea and said you shouldn't be able to see through it! My sister-in-law the Hispanic uses my Mother's recipe for Gumbo and was surprized to hear about my ex's remark.

Pruitt

[boomer400]

Originally Posted by Leonardo63

I'm sorry-but given a choice between Balut or Lassie- Woof! Woof! ... Pic alone is a gagger. you are one serious baddass LL!

LOL, yeah, LL, you should say that it's fertilized duck egg; the egg holds not just an embryo (like you buy in the market) but the potentialized fertilized duck itself. So it's delicacy among quite a few people for some reason. And I'm ok with eating it rarely as long as I get the beer to chase it with. Also that image is for some reason even less appealing than what I normally have; maybe it's been undercooked or something.

BTW, it's not the same thing as "1000yr old egg" as some may think; those're just typical eggs but preserved . They're rolled in with salt, sodium carbonate, calcium hydroxide (quicklime); after awhile, the casings broken apart and you get the final product. And those are tasty when you mix them into certain soups or porridges. In a weird bizarre way, they remind me of lutefisk; joy!

[Phieu]

Originally Posted by Pruitt

Just how do you define "Vietnamese"? I have met a number of people that say they are Vietnamese, but are actually ethnic Cambodians. Also there are the Hill tribes?

"Authentic" can have numerous meanings. In Louisiana we can have Asians and Hispanics cooking "authentic" Cajun food...My mother cooked what she called Gumbo. My ex-wife, the Cajun curled her lip at it and called it tea and said you shouldn't be able to see through it! My sister-in-law the Hispanic uses my Mother's recipe for Gumbo and was surprized to hear about my ex's remark.

Pruitt

I don't think it's something you can define. You have to be a Vietnamese to know or rather to feel if an alleged Vietnamese dish served is authentic Vietnamese or not. Of course, there are instances an exceptional non Vietnamese chef cook can come up with an "authentic" Vietnamese dish. But that is rather rare.

In New York City, when I am asked, "where can I go to have an authentic Vietnamese food", I don't send him/her to Vietnamese restaurants in Chinatown. I am only sure about Le Colonial on 57th street and Lexington Avenue. Not even to Indochine which serves rather Cambodian-Vietnamese dishes, although it's excellent food, just not authentic Vietnamese.

Also in New York Ciy - and it should be the sam in other cities of the USA - the majority of sushi restaurants are run not by Japanese but by Chinese and Vietnamese. My tongue can't tell the difference - especially the food is served uncooked - but I bet you a Japanese's tongue certainly can!

[Miss Saigon]

Originally Posted by Salinator

You are trying too hard. There is no such thing as a Vietnamese-Vietnamese.........that is pure nonsense.

Come on now Sal, I hear this kind of expression all the time about ethnic groups in the US. "Are you Italian Italian, or American Italian. Irish Irish, or American Irish.

He has used an expression that you hear all the time on the streets of the USA.

And there is a large ethnic Chinese population in Vietnam.

[Honolulu Dick]

Be it good or bad, it was all we had to eat. When on extended operations with our Regional Force, VNese troops, we ate rice, fish and a bit of greenery, three times a day.

When moving through the countryside, the troops constantly picked at bits and pieces of wild greenery. These morsels were stored in a plastic bag the troops carried inside their unbuttoned shirts. Each trooper also carried a bandolier of dry rice around his neck. When we laagered for the night, the cooks would spread out a plastic sheet and the troops would dump their collection of greenery on the plastic as they passed by. The dry rice would be dumped in cooking pots.

As the cooks did their thing with the greenery, others would go hand grenade fishing. The stunned fish floated to the surface for easy pickings and were raked within grasp using long, freshly cut bamboo poles.

All items were boiled together in large cooking pots and the stewed mess was eaten from our canteen cups. The cooks also carried canteens filled with the ever-present fish sauce to flavor our meals.

Enough was prepared so that each of us was furnished a rice-ball, wrapped in a palm leaf, for the next days lunch. Water was added to what remained in the cooking pots and when heated the next morning, breakfast consisted of rice and fish soup.

While I never enjoyed the food, I always had fun tossing grenades to stun the fish. At nearly sea level, the ground [even though dry] contains enough moisture to have the grenade concussion reverberate like earth quake waves. It really shakes the ground like a genuine quake. You spread your feet to maintain your balance as the waves pass beneath you.

By lunch time, I was so damned starved I looked forward to munching on the fish-flavored rice-ball I carried. I would even chew on the palm leaf wrapper to extract whatever extra nourishment it offered.

There were times when we would marry-up with a US unit, either towards or at the end of an exercise, and I could get my hands on a C-rat meal. After 3-days of a steady diet of rice and fish, that C-rat meal was a gourmet blessing.

Vietnamese GI chow #10! American GI C-rats #1!