An Helene - Ăn: to eat: recipes and stories from a Vietnamese family kitchen

2016 by Helene An and Jacqueline An

Photography 2016 by Evan Sung, unless otherwise noted.

Photo credits for pages 16-17: Simon Dannhauer / Thinkstock.com; page 117: Maciej Bledowski / Thinkstock.com; page 191: Photo by Emma McGowan

The following pages contain images from the An family archives: front endpaper, 2, 9, 13, 14, 15, 20, 22, 43, 48-49, 55, 72, 73, 74, 78, 80, 89, 97, 106, 109, 112, 115, 116, 118, 151, 157, 158, 159, 161, 162, 175, 194, 196, 199, 200, 202, 203, 229, 231, 235, 245, 264, 284, 285, 292, 295, 296

Published by Running Press,

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Printed in China

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2015958289

E-book ISBN 978-0-7624-5836-3

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing

Design by Susan Van Horn

Edited by Jennifer Kasius

Photography, unless otherwise noted, by Evan Sung

Prop styling by Nidia Cueva

Food styling by Helene An and Tony Nguyen

Typography: Merlo and Archer

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Table of Contents

contents

by JACQUELINE AN

I grew up listening to the stories of my mothers childhood in Vietnam: the adventures, the dangers, and the elegance of a lost world. Her early years were a time of plenty and a time of peril. She told me about her aristocratic familys plantation estate in the unspoiled countryside, four smaller houses surrounding one big one where my great-grandfather addressed everyone from a balcony on high. She recounted the night her own father was pulled from his bed by Communist invaders and tied to a tree, his life spared only when the local villagers pleaded for it. She remembered the delicious grasshoppers she enjoyed as a small girl at harvest festivals, and the time she fell off a basket boat and almost drowned when her family was making yet another unplanned escape.

Helene and baby Jacqueline, 1979.

Most of her stories were told as she was making food, which, since our family is in the restaurant business, was almost always. Forced to flee Vietnam after the fall of Saigon with little more than the clothes on her back, my mother started her new life in America as a cook in a small, converted Italian deli purchased years before on a whim by her mother-in-law. Life in the restaurant business is not easy, and my parents and grandparents worked around the clock to support my sisters and me. Our own early years were not filled with material things. There was not a lot of money, but there was always food.

Food was such a part of our lives that when I was younger, I thought it was such a funny coincidence that n, so like our own last name, meant to eat since we owned eating establishments, and my parents and grandparents likened almost everything to eating. (As it turns out, our last name An without the breve over the a means security, but really, in our lives, eating and security were one and the same.)

My parents never thought they would be in the restaurant industrymy father was a colonel in the Vietnamese Air Force and my mother dreamed of being a politicianbut they were raised with a deep appreciation of food. My fathers motto is: If youre going to eat, you might as well eat well. My mother likes to remind us that my fathers quest for the perfect ingredient goes back decades. When he flew his plane to Hong Kong, he made sure to bring back the famous roast duck; from the Philippines he brought cases of rich butter; from Singapore, the freshest melons and exotic fruits. Even now when he no longer has a plane at his disposal, he still adheres to the same philosophy, driving an hour away to Orange County to get a certain special ingredient for my mother to cook. My mother jokes that before theyve finished todays breakfast, my father has already started thinking about tomorrows meals.

For my family, food is life and life is food. The only day my mother (known as Mama to everyone she meets) didnt cook a full meal for us was on Monday, the one day that our restaurant was closed. My father designated it as her day off, and he would take all of us out for a family dinner. Even now she wakes up early every morning to make breakfast for whomever is staying with her before she heads out to our restaurants, and on the weekends when shes not working shell make everyone lunch. There is always food at Mamas house, and it is the hub that keeps us together.

Although my mother worked sixteen hours a day when we were growing up, we always felt her presence and her love. We felt it through her cooking, through the mouthwatering meals she made for us daily.

As she made a dish, my mother would tell the story behind it, bringing to life once again the people and ingredients back home that inspired her. It was a peek into a time and a culture that we will never get back. Ultimately, thats what cooking and eating together is all about. Its not just a way to pass down recipes and techniques that would otherwise be lost; its an opportunity for family history to be shared among generations. Coming together to make and break bread (or rice, in our case) helps us keep the memories and legacy of our loved ones alive.

Traditionally in Vietnam, recipes arent written down. Instead, they are passed along orally. You learn from your mother and your aunt and your sister who learned from theirs. I wanted to break from this tradition, though, in order to save it. I wanted to preserve my mothers recipes and story for my children the same way she had preserved the culture and traditions of her home country for my sisters and me. Writing this book was a way to permanently chronicle her life and recipes as well as the lifestyle of a forgotten time.

I want the people who love my mothers food and those just learning about it to know what inspired her and learn how to bring some of the same magic into their own kitchens. I want to share what her food meant to us children growing up, how it taught us about love and commitment and dedication. And most of all, I want to record her culinary creations, because they are so unlike anything ever imagined beforewith clean flavors, simple techniques, and unique twists that could only have come from her personal story. My mother saw the loss of not one but two family fortunes. She was born as bombs were falling, and she gave birth years later the same way. Yet she never gave up.