Nguyen - Lemongrass, Ginger and Mint Vietnamese Cookbook: Classic Vietnamese Street Food Made at Home

To my grandmother, B Ngo a i, and my mother, M e , who cooked the best meals of my life with so much love and laughter

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If youre able to enjoy your food and your sleep, youll be as happy as an angel.

VIETNAMESE SAYING

I was born in Vietnam, in a small rural northern town 20 miles from the capital city of Hanoi. It was the mid-1980s, a time of widespread food scarcity. Meat, rice, fish sauce, soy sauce, and even wood for cooking were not sold, but instead distributed to each household based on the number and ages of family members. For the first few years of my life, my family received a monthly child rationtwo pounds of rice and a quarter-pound of porkto feed me for an entire month. Our familys life depended on the so-called family rice book my mom would bring to the food counter every month to get our rice allowance. Theres a Vietnamese saying dating back to those days: To be as desperate as if youve lost your family rice book. In fact, my mom lost her rice book once, and it felt like the very end of the world until somebody found it and was kind enough to return it to her. My mom still recalls that story from time to time, and says that experience was harder than any other sorrows or nightmares in her life. Back then, a bowl of fluffy rice was truly a luxury for many families.

Despite our circumstances, I was a happy child. In retrospect I realize it didnt make much difference because I didnt know that I was poor, or that anyone else was richer. My childhood memories are filled with my grandparents love and our wonderful natural surroundings. In the 1980s, many families in the countryside followed the V-A-C model, short for vn-ao-chung, or garden-pond-cages. My grandparents had a big garden to grow vegetables and fruit trees, a pond to raise fish and water hyacinth (used as pig fodder), and land for pigs and chickens. My grandparents came from families of good cooks. They couldnt afford to buy food in the market, but because of their excellent cooking, fishing, and foraging skills and the abundance of fresh ingredients in our garden and pond, they made mouthwatering vegetable, shrimp, and crab dishes. We had chicken as well, although that was a special treat offered just a few times a year. I learned from my grandmother, a resourceful tailor, that the most basic ingredients can make a delicious and nutritiously balanced meal. From my grandfather, a retired army official who had spent years marching in jungles and was used to food scarcity, I learned that though sometimes you might be missing an ingredient or twoor in our case, too manyyou can still be creative and make the most of what you have. One time my grandfather even caught a big snake near our pond and turned it into very delicious snake patties!

Like many Vietnamese families at the time, we didn't own a camera. Once a year on my birthday, my mom and I would dress up and have our photo taken. My mom was wearing an o di , a traditional Vietnamese dress that my aunt had lent her.

Like everyone else in the country at the time, my grandparents were poor, but because of this, they placed great emphasis on cooking delicious traditional food for special occasions like Tt (Vietnamese New Year) and important anniversaries. You dont get to cook it very often, so when you get to cook it, you have to cook it well, my grandmother explained. Cooking traditional dishes was a ritual, and eating them a celebration. From all those years living with my grandparents, the most valuable lesson I learned was that making delicious food for your beloved ones is a pure joy, and watching them enjoy the food you made generates contagious happiness. I knew this from watching my grandparents faces as they served us.

I started to get really into cooking when I moved to Hanoi for college and lived there for the next eight years. I cooked for myself almost every day (I didnt have a fridge) and became inspired by the alluring food scene in Hanoi. Just a few steps out of my house were food baskets, stands, stools, and people eating everywherefrom big roads and sidewalks to back alleys and corners. I promised myself that when I got a job, I would spend my first months salary eating my way through my neighborhood.