Phở's Eating Culture

Eating culture is one of the aspects we are concerned about when researching Phở. In Vietnam, Phở is the common people’s food, found in every home. It has become the soul of Vietnamese so that foreigners cannot miss trying this dish from the first time they come to our country. This dish is even famous domestically. In other words, it is known and desired by every Vietnamese, from the rich to the poor. “Whether you walk along broad or narrow streets, all over the country you could see hungry people crouched on tiny stools slurping every bit of their Phở”. (Pat, http://www.vietnam.com)

According to Phofever.com, the popularity of Phở has begun to spread southwards since 1954, when the country was divided into North and South Vietnam. From that time, Phở has a lot of variants because the taste of Vietnamese all over the country are different. Nguyen has said that “People eat by the mouth, but they eat by the nose and eyes first.” (Meena Ramakrishnan, Vietnamese soup has become signature dish in Dot, May. 31, 2012). Vietnamese all over the country add several garnishes to their Phở in different ways which are influenced by their appetites. For example, Vietnamese in the Northern part enjoy eating food which is sour so that they tend to add vinegar or lime juice into their dish. We can see it obviously in the way Hanoian eat “Pho”. They never forget squeezing a little lime “to tame the sometimes too sweet or too salty broth” (Pat, http://www.vietnam.com ) . In contrast, Vietnamese in the Southern part eat Phở in a totally different way. Because they enjoy eating sweet and oily food, their Phở’s broth seems to be sweeter and more oily. Another obviously different part is that they add bean sprouts to their Phở, which is a seemly strange way to Vietnamese in the Northern part (www.wikipedia.org ). According to Pat in Vietnam.com, the reason Vietnamese in the Northern part enjoy eating Phở with bean sprouts is that they “freshly added or slightly blanched, they are...