Pho is a traditional Vietnamese dish that has captured the world's attention. One interesting fact about Pho is that the word originates from the French language, specifically the word feu, which means "fire." The full term is Pot-au-feu, which translates to "pot on the fire" or "stew" in French.
A bowl of pho is served with noodles made from rice flour, topped with bean sprouts placed over the noodles. For protein, you can choose sliced chicken, beef, fish, or tofu. After that, it is poured with hot beef broth and added with spices, such as cilantro, Thai basil, scallions, cloves, and a squeeze of lime.
To enhance its flavor, pho is usually enjoyed with additional sauces, such as hoisin sauce, sriracha sauce, and sliced chilies.
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The Origins of Pho
The history behind this traditional Vietnamese dish is believed to be from the 19th to 20th century, during the French colonialism era. It originated from northern Vietnam, called Nam Dinh.
The dish appears as an adaptation of the French “Pot au Feu,” or beef stew, in which the Vietnamese people originally never consumed cows for food but rather as manual labor in the rice fields.
Originally, people in Vietnam never considered cows as a food source but rather water buffaloes as found in a dish named Xao Trau, which is a noodle dish made from sliced water buffalo and rice vermicelli cooked in broth.
However, after the French arrived and started to introduce the use of cows for their beef stew, the demand for cows rose, resulting in a lot of beef leftovers such as cow bones being sold to the local butchers.
At the time, the Vietnamese people had not yet developed a taste for beef, so these butchers had to improvise on how to make people buy these beef leftovers. However, some butchers who also already selling noodle soup had an idea to offer something new.
They added beef bones as a stock for the already popular Xao Trau, as well as flat noodles which this addition delighted the Chinese workers, especially those who came from Yunnan and Guangdong provinces which they said that the taste was not so different from back home.
This change was not only loved by the Chinese workers but also the Vietnamese people themselves grew fond of it and started selling it via roaming vendors called “ganh pho” which often be found on the streets of the Old Quarter in Hanoi.
Evolution of Pho
As pho began to gain popularity among people in Vietnam, a lot of restaurants started to serve this dish and even tried to experiment with it, such as swapping beef with chicken to add variations to the menu.
Pho itself, similar to many traditional foods from around the world, has also gone through various changes and challenges throughout history, it has even almost gone extinct during hard times in Vietnam, the most notable changes happened in 1954 when the country was split into two.
When pho started to go south along with millions of other northerners, this had a huge impact on the evolution of pho since the north and south regions of Vietnam had different environments.
Because southern Vietnam is agriculturally rich, a lot of pho makers there had to adapt by adding some extra ingredients like Thai basil, bean sprouts, Chinese rock sugar, as well as hoisin and chili sauce.
Northern Vietnam on the other hand tends to keep and preserve the original recipe for pho which somewhat creates a debate about which version of pho is considered authentic.
However, no matter where it comes from, south or north, pho will always be the same. In fact, it actually does not evolve that much at all from the original form since a lot of restaurants that serve pho let their customers choose what kind of beef they like, including rare beef, brisket, tendon, flank, meatballs, and even chickens if you prefer it that way.
