The Malaysian Insider :: Food
The Malaysian Insider :: Food |
| Vietnamese noodles: a cultural pho-nomenon Posted: 27 Jan 2013 03:42 PM PST  Bowls of pho noodle soup being prepared for customers at Pho Thin restaurant in Hanoi. – AFP pic Pho, a simple soup of beef broth, herbs, spices and rice noodles, emerged some 100 years ago in north Vietnam and has since acquired a global following, beloved by French celebrity chefs and cash-strapped American students alike. But in Vietnam eating pho is akin to a religious ritual—as the late writer Nguyen Tuan said—and the humble dish, which can be found on every street corner in the capital Hanoi, is integral to people's daily lives. "I have been eating here for more than 20 years," Tran Van Hung told AFP as he stood shivering in Hanoi's damp winter chill in the queue at the Pho Thin restaurant. "The staff here is always rude to me. I'm used to it. I don't care," the 39-year-old said, adding that he was raised on the noodles from the unassuming yet renowned establishment on Hanoi's Lo Duc street. Pho is a Vietnamese staple. While traditionally a breakfast food, it is now served at all times of day and eaten regularly by rich and poor alike, usually at the same establishments, where it costs around a dollar a bowl. "Pho is purely Vietnamese, the most unique, distinctive dish in our cuisine," said chef Pham Anh Tuyet. The noodles must be handmade, the perfect size and no more than four hours old; the ginger must be chargrilled; the broth of beef bones and oriental spices must have bubbled gently for at least eight hours over coals, she said. "The fragrant perfume of the pho is part of the beauty of the dish," Tuyet, who is famed for her mastery of traditional cooking, told AFP. "No other country can make anything like pho—one of the secrets is the broth, the clear, aromatic broth," she told AFP at her tiny restaurant, tucked away on the top floor of a wood-fronted house in Hanoi's Old Quarter. • Controversy obscures origins The exact origins of pho are obscure and highly controversial in Vietnam. It is traditionally made with beef broth, but chicken has also been used since the 1940s when the Japanese occupation resulted in a scarcity of beef. Beef was not common in Vietnamese cooking at the turn of the century—cattle were valuable working beasts—but with the arrival of the steak-eating French colonialists, bones and other scraps became available for the soup pot. Some experts, such as Didier Corlou, the former head chef at Hanoi's Metropole Hotel who has expounded pho's virtues to international gourmands for decades, argue the dish is "Vietnamese with French influence". "The name 'pho' could have come from 'pot au feu'—the French dish," Corlou told AFP, pointing out similarities between the dishes, including the grilled onion in the French dish and the grilled shallot in pho. Another theory, Corlou said, is that as pho was first sold by roving hawkers carrying a pot and an earthenware stove—a "coffre-feu" in French—the name comes from the shouts of "feu?" "feu!" to establish if noodles were available. Yet another argument suggests pho originated from a talented cook in Nam Dinh city—once Vietnam's largest colonial textile centre, where both French and Vietnamese workers toiled—who thought up a soup to please both nationalities. Many Vietnamese strongly deny any French influence on their national dish, arguing it pre-dates the colonial period and is uniquely northern Vietnamese. But whatever the real story, "pho is one of the world's best soups," Corlou said. "For me Vietnamese cuisine is the best in the world." • Pho au fois gras? Corlou said that while the main ingredients of pho stay constant, the dish must evolve. At his three Hanoi restaurants, for example, he offers a salmon pho as well as a pho au fois gras priced at US$10 (RM30.40) a bowl — "you cannot put pho in a museum," he said. In the last decade, new local versions of that classic — including fresh rolls made from unsliced pho rice noodle sheets — have also emerged. And as Vietnam has grown richer, more expensive pho — including a reported US$40 kobe beef version — has appeared. But beyond adding more meat, there is not much you can do to improve the dish, said Hanoi-based chef and cuisine expert Tracey Lister, who thinks the Vietnamese deserve the credit for their acclaimed noodle soup. "It is the great dish, the celebrated dish, and I think we've got to let Vietnam have that one," Lister, the director of the Hanoi Cooking Center, said. "Pho truly represents Vietnamese cuisine. It's a simple dish yet sophisticated. It is a very elegant dish. It's just a classic." – AFP-Relaxnews |
| How Team USA hopes to break Bocuse d’Or curse and go for gold Posted: 27 Jan 2013 03:31 PM PST  Chef Richard Rosendale (right) and his commis Corey Siegel (left) will be cooking for the US at the Bocuse d'Or. – Picture courtesy of ©Bonjwing Lee and the Bocuse d'Or USA Foundation The task is a challenge: create a recipe that embodies his country. But how do you distill a country as vast and diverse as the US into a single dish? Easy. You don't, says Rosendale. Instead, you draw inspiration from an intensely personal memory, an American landmark that captured your imagination as a young boy, stayed with you throughout your life, and aligns with your own culinary philosophy of producing clean, modern, refined but simple cuisine. The result is a Yankee-style pot roast of beef braised with carrots and potatoes—the kind he grew up on—styled after American architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater house in southwestern Pennsylvania, where Rosendale grew up. Think a cantilevered structure, built over a stunning natural waterfall. It's down-home American eats elevated to a level of fine dining that would pass muster at a one of the most prestigious culinary competitions in the world, the Bocuse d'Or, set to take place in Lyon next week. Rosendale and his 22-year-old commis Corey Siegel have a lot of pressure on their shoulders. With the backing of some of the top chefs in the US such as Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud, the duo has been groomed to bring home the gold, and nothing less. A feat all the more challenging given the country's lackluster performance over the history of the competition: the best the US has ever done was sixth place. In a phone interview from Lyon with Relaxnews, Rosendale sounds remarkably calm and collected for a man who is about to embark on the competition of his life. But that could be because over the past year, Rosendale has gone over his battle plan with military precision and cooked through several dress rehearsals for the big day when he and Siegel will engage in a five-and-a-half hour cooking throwdown. And he's not being figurative when uses the word 'militant.' 'Secret weapon' From recreating the same Bocuse d'Or kitchen in an underground bunker in his Greenbrier Resort restaurant in West Virginia, to tagging and itemizing every piece of clothing he'll be wearing for functions during his stay in Lyon, Rosendale admits to being a bit of a control freak. But being hyper-organized is what Rosendale credits for allowing him to handle the enormous task of overseeing 13 food and beverage divisions and a staff of 185 people on a day-to-day basis at the resort, he says. And it's this same strategy he believes will help him manage any unexpected surprises on competition day. "By controlling everything you can control, it makes you better at being able to control anything that pops up – the unknown variables," he said. Which is why, when the Bocuse d'Or announced sweeping changes to the rules of the game this year, the first of its kind in 25 years, Rosendale admits to being thrown off guard. 'Sweeping changes to the rules of the game' In years past, competitors were able to pre-plan their menu down to the last detail and garnish. But this year, in order to bring more showmanship and spontaneity to the game, organizers announced that competitors will have to improvise two of their three garnishes for their fish platter. On the eve of the competition, chefs will be taken to a farmer's market and have an hour and a half to shop for their ingredients. But for a chef who credits his success on running a tight ship, and for whom the Bocuse d'Or had been a life goal for the last 10 years, the changes made – during his turn at the stove, no less – came as a surprise, he admits. "It's uncharted territory," he said, "One thing is that no one is at an advantage or disadvantage. You just have to prepare yourself for these new circumstances." In the meantime, Rosendale has already taken care of the small details that can make a world of a difference in a competition where every second counts. To overcome the language barrier and avoid petty details, he's color-coded the kitchen utensils so that the dishwasher – who presumably speaks French – knows that the yellow spatula goes in the yellow-coded bin, or that the red whisk goes in the red tray. To make sure his food stays hot, Rosendale and his team custom built a serving tray that keeps the food hot with a battery-powered pack, and added a film of heat-resistant silicone to prevent the dishes from sliding around. 'Going for gold' It's the sum of all these strategies that Rosendale is hoping will bring him the gold and give the US the credit it deserves for being a culinary country to reckon with, he says. For Rosendale, it's not just an honor to be nominated. He's frank about his hunger to win. Case in point: The password on their computer is "goingforgold." Bocuse d'Or USA will be livestreaming the event on their site. Team USA is scheduled to cook Jan 30. – AFP-Relaxnews |
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