Phởnunication
Do not say foe
Do not say foo
And especially don’t
Say the word which describes a “number two”

Start with an fff
To be followed by an urgh
Once it become un-Phở-gettable
You’ll get with the slue.

An extract from Phởnunication courtesey, Katie Nguyen from the I Love Pho booklet.

Anyone whose origins are Vietnamese has a story about phở, the beefy, spicy nutricious Vietnamese noodle soup. And phở, the national dish of Vietnam, is a hot topic debated every bit as passionately as Australia’s various football codes. Some debates concern the origin of the word itself. Others debate whether or not phở is better in Ho Choi Minh City in the south or in Hanoi in the north, its state of origin. The fact is that phở believers are as one-eyed as Collingwood supporters. The origins of phở aren’t quite as clear as the tasty beefy broth. But it is thought to have emerged from Nam Dinh near Hanoi in northern Vietnam in the 1880s, a synthesis of Chinese noodles and spices, with the French method of making stock and love of red meat.

Coung Phu Le, curator of the travelling I Love Phở exhibition which originated a the Casula Powerhouse Arts centre in NSW, is helping bring some clarity to the subject with the booklet “I Love Phở”.

In an interview with the blog Chubby Hubby when the exhibition arrived in Singapore he outlined three possible origins of the word. One is that the word comes from the Mandarin Chinese “fen” (pronounced “phân”), used to announce the arrival of a hawker. The scholar Nguyen Ngoc Bich explains hawkers would not call out phân” as it means excrement in Vietnamese so they dropped the final “n” and shouted “phở”. Other explanations suggest that the name was derived from the exclamation of fire - feu in French - to attract the attention of a hawker carrying his fire chest on a yoke,who would reply in kind.

Or perhaps, he says, the word simple abbreviates the French “pot au feu”, a rich meaty dish comprising beef, vegetables and sometimes rice or pasta. Le won’t be drawn into a debate over where to find the best phở. "To be honest, I could provide you few names, but I do not want to associate my name with my judgment,” he says. “I keep telling people that I am only interested in the best Pho-related stories, not the best Pho, due to its diverse tastes.”

Hoang Anh Hguyen has no such qualms. Born in Hanoi and now studying for her PHD in Melbourne, for her there is nothing quite like a phở in her home town. “In Hanoi phở is the best. There is no argument about it,” she says. “I grew up in Hanoi so I think it is the best of course,” she says. “I never eat Pho in the south. I ate it there once and I think I stay away from it because it is too sweet for me.”

In Australia phở is good but its tends to be the sweeter Thai influenced southern style. Nguyen says that the difference is that many more ingredients are used in the south. “The broth is different,” she says. “The spice is almost the same. But the way they cook it is different. In the south it’s sweeter and the broth is lighter. In the north the broth is a bit denser due to the longer time of cooking.”

In Vietnam families rarely cook phở at home because it takes time and there is so much good phở available in the streets. Even in Hanoi not all phở are equal and the subject of debate. There are different styles and levels, Nguyen says. “There is the top level available from the top four shops who have been around for 80 years plus. Then there is the medium range which have become famous in the past 20 or 30 years. Then the basic street phở found on almost every street corner in Vietnam.” She says that the street corner phở is not really for her. “I grew up with the top four,” she says. “Even among the top, the most famous shops in Hanoi, the phở is actually very different.”

Phở Bat Dan (49 Bat Dan St, Hanoi) is a family favourite. “You have to queue up and order,” she says. “You really need a local with you otherwise you can’t really order. That shop, I love it. It’s more meaty than any other shop and more generous in portion. Whenever my boyfriend comes to Hanoi he ate two bowls. “It’s okay here but it will never be as good at home…Whenever I come back from Vietnam I crave for phở.”

Recipes

Pho (Vietnamese soup)