The Essence of Vietnam July 10-11 2004

Sure enough, its smell was reminiscent of freshly stood-on cockroach. Apparently it gives "a lift" to certain dishes. Only a few drops are required. Later we learned that it's actually essence of a water bug, around 10 centimetres long which lives in rice paddies, but due to modern agricultural chemicals, it's dying out.

The market had momentarily distracted us from the main game. We were on a gastronomic mission: a two week-long regional food tour of Vietnam. It was our first morning, and we had hit the streets squatting, perched on tiny kindergarten stools in the back alleyways of old Hanoi, with their open gutters and pungent odours of durian and urine. We were on a pho "crawl", in search of different examples of that ubiquitous noodle soup, the breakfast staple of Vietnam.

Pronounced "fir", it lead to much competitive punning between the Americans and the Aussies in our group of eight - as in "so pho so good!" and "the tastiest soup so pho".

By 10 am we were on our second pho of the day. Hunkered down around a communal table covered with a brightly-coloured plastic tablecloth, bums barely centimetres off the ground, the ritual began.

First you reach for a pair of wooden chopsticks from a communal jar, then for a small square of paper to wipe their cursorily-rinsed tips. Then you are passed a plastic spoon, and you wait for your bowl.

A sieve-full of pre-cooked white rice noodles (similar in thickness to taglierini) is briefly dipped in hot water and poured into the bowl. On top of these are placed thinly sliced slivers of - on this occasion - raw beef. From another bubbling cauldron, hot beef broth - redolent of star anise, brown cardamom and cinnamon - is ladled over them, and the beef allowed to poach gently in the stock. Over this are sprinkled shredded fresh herbs such as saw-toothed coriander (rau mui tau) sweet mint (rau thom) and coriander (rau mui) and topped off with crumbled fried shallots. A wedge of fresh lime is presented, and small dishes and jars of condiments - sliced chillies in fish sauce, chilli jam - are passed around, to be added at one's discretion.

This soup is the quintessential dish of Vietnam. Usually eaten as the first meal of the day throughout the country, in Hanoi it is often consumed for lunch and dinner as well, causing southerners to opine disdainfully that in the north they eat breakfast three times a day.

Guided by self-described "globetrotting gourmet", Australian Robert Carmack, author of numerous cookbooks most recently "Vietnamese Home Cooking"(Lansdowne), on this particular day we managed to sample a total of seven, not a bad tally for such a filling dish.

We'd started our quest in the elegant, pristinely hygienic diningroom of the historic Metropole Hotel where a traditional pho stand was part of its cornucopial breakfast buffet.

Eschewing the excellent baguettes, French patisserie, local goat's cheese, freshly cut tropical fruit, unusual  juices - even bacon and eggs - the hotel's delicate pho provided a benchmark of this 100 year old dish. Originally sold by roving street hawkers, historically it's thought aver that pho dates back only to the beginning of the 20th century when it evolved as street food to feed the newly urban-dwelling textile workers.

It's speculated that its name derives from the French "coffre-feu" - literally "fire box"- from the two deep wooden chests in which the street hawkers used to carry their stoves and stock pots around, balancing one from each shoulder on the ends of a wooden yoke.

Certainly there was a great variety and subtlety of tastes among those we sampled. Some were slightly sour-and-sweet reminiscent of a bland, non-spicy Thai tom yum. Others were made with sliced cooked beef brisket, the sinews cooked to a gelatinous consistency. In the countryside it can be made with fish, duck, vegetables, even pork and pig's heart or kidneys. It even comes in a dry form - without broth - as stir-fried noodles with mustard greens.
 
We learned that in some phos, spuncles, or sea worms are added to the stock to make it tastier. But thankfully, as far as I could tell, all the phos we sampled were free of any cockroach essence.