Blomgren - Vietnamese Cookbook: 60 Delicious Vietnamese Recipes

With Vietnam's long history, it's no surprise that its food is a fusion of the world's greatest culinary traditions, French, Chinese, and a dash of Japanese. Consequently, Vietnamese cooking lends itself to adaptation. It is very traditional and gives a lot of importance to healthy food. They enjoy their savory and sweet dishes alike and try to prepare with the simplest of cooking methods and most natural ingredients, thereby ensuring a balanced diet for all ages.

In Vietnam, religion, seasons, cultures, and festivals have a heavy influence on the dishes that are prepared. Their breakfast is mostly the heaviest as it keeps them going and healthy for most of the day. It would include soups and stews made from beans, rice, noodles, pork, duck, and vegetables. Lunch and snacks are lighter as people are often at work and mostly fill up with street food like rolls and sandwiches. Last is dinner, is a delectable mix of hot steaming rice, some vegetables, beans, meat or poultry or seafood of any kind, sauces, and salads and is more of a family meeting hub over nutritious warm food.

The use of herbs is another unique identity of Vietnamese cuisine. Common herbs used are basil, coriander, and mint. Health is a major priority in Vietnamese cuisine, with special emphasis placed on vegetarian recipes. This is so because the majority of the Buddhist people in Vietnam are loyal to their doctrines.

Each element of Vietnamese cuisine is symbolic to nature and is known as the five fundamental taste senses mainly, which are:

1) Spice symbolizing to metal

2) Sour symbolizing to wood

3) Bitter symbolizing the element fire

4) Salty symbolizing water, and

5) Sweet symbolizing earth

These tastes have their unique smell, color, and nutrients, each enriched with carbohydrates, fats, minerals, proteins, and water. All in all, they contribute to making Vietnam cuisine healthy, refreshing, and well-flavored food.

This cookbook will provide you with several dishes ranging from breakfast to desserts, each delectable in its taste. Through preparing Vietnamese cooking, you will soon discover that these recipes offer tasty uses for spices and fresh herbs quite often. May you enjoy many years of preparing this collection of Vietnamese dishes with family and friends!

Happy Cooking!