In praise of Phở

Because of my passion for phở, in whatever country I happen to be, I always look for a Vietnamese restaurant where I can savor a bowl of phở and draw a comparison with the soup served in our country. Let us note that phở, whether beef or chicken, is just loved by foreigners, especially Japanese tourists, some of whom may order two or three bowls in a row. Reminiscing about his visit to Việt Nam, Kiyomi Tsujimoto, president of the Peace Boat Movement, exclaims: “I pine for a snack of phở”.

Where dose the savor of phở lie? What differentiates a bowl of this soup served abroad from our phở (northern phở)? Far from being a gournet, I would like to start a discussion on this subject in the hope of benefiting from the knowledge of experts.

I remember my first visit to Paris in the winter of 1989. Cold and hungry, I made my way to the 13^th arrondissement attracted by the reputation of its Vietnamese and Chinese restaurants which served, so I was told, even more tasty food than that found in Việt Nam.

Naturally enough, as soon as I took my seat at a table, I ordered a bowl of phở with scalded beef. Let me say right away that, given the large number of shops, I took my choice of the restaurant with the largest custom, believing that I wound find there the best food.

Alas, I failed to bring to my mouth the taste of Hà Nội phở, although no ingredient was missing: meat, hot pepper, lemon juice, mùi aromatic herb and cinnamon… but the beef extracted from the deep-freezer was rubbery, the rice noodle was a bit too rich, the aromatic leaves were large and green but had no flavor. And the broth. The artificial succulence given to it by the seasoning was sickening.

Something peculiar to real phở was missing, something, perhaps, coming from thảo quả, cinnamon and mint of láng. And old Hà Nội gourmet has revealed to me a secret of Chinese caterers: an ingredient that gives the broth the taste of marrow bones, without recourse to gourmet powder.

On the occasion for my passage to other French cities – Greenbelt, Lyon, Besancon, Nine – I also went in search of phở served by local Vietnamese-owned restaurants. I believed that Vietnamese expatriates come to them more to experience at a certain gastronomic sensation than to draw a satisfactory comparison between “western” phở and the soup served in Hà Nội or Sài Gòn.

I shivered with cold when arriving in Hamburg for the first time. I stayed there three days before driving on to Nuremberg and Munich. Never have I felt the sting of cold and hunger more acutely than during those seven days. Never have I craved so much for the smell of a steaming hot bowl of phở – even the kind served in the 13^th arrondissement of Paris. The mere thought of it made my heart miss a best…

I arrived in Copenhagen around nine in the evening. The city was then deserted. Harassed by the demon of phở, I made a patient search in the telephone directory before ferreting out the address of a Vietnamese restaurant some 30 kilometers from the hotel where I lived. I paid a US $35 taxi fare to go there. The owner, a native of Hải Phòng, told me he had started business there three years ago. He vaunted his Vietnamese specialties, eventually offering me a bowl of excellent phở, which could approach the phở of Hà Nội. He whispered to me his secret: “People of my family”, he said, “send me from home regular supplies of sá sùng and thảo quả, so essential to the making of a good phở”. Alas, I still mised the aroma tomers squatting on the benches in phở stall in Hà Nội around midnight…

My pious search for genuine phở has also taken me to Little Sài Gòn, in California, USD. Every time I came back to Sài Gòn, I had to take a bowl of phở, steaming hot and duly flavoured. But I must say in all sincerity that Sài Gòn phở is no longer authentic phở, except in some restaurants kept by northerners. Even in Hà Nội, tradition is fading. The taste of the clear broth, with a savor of sá sùng, thảo quả, quế chi and ginger, the bits of meat from carefully selected cuts and crushed on blocks of wood, the soft noodles of newly harvested rice, the mauve leaves of láng mint – all this is part of a legacy of refinement and harmony coming to us from our forefathers.