As adoptive parents to a Vietnamese child, Patrick and I decided that we had better start learning the fine art of Vietnamese cooking soon! It is definitely one cuisine that we both enjoy greatly, but have never attempted to cook at home. Yesterday, we set off to try our hand at cooking up some seafood dishes, under the experienced guidance of Mrs. An at Hidden Hanoi
cooking school. Although this class is listed in some guide books, it is conspicuously absent from our trusty LP. Even quick searches on the internet failed to turn up reviews of this cooking school, although we did find some bad reviews of another class in town, so we had no idea what to expect. Mrs. An asked us to meet her at the Sheraton hotel on West Lake, a swanky place where they tried to shuffle us off as quick as possible - we must have been looking extra scruffy yesterday! This part of Hanoi seems very much like an old European city and very quite compared to the old city. We found out later that 80% of the people living in this area are ex-pats. After a bit of confusion, we finally met up with Mrs. An, a friendly woman who owns the cooking school and also offers unique walking tours around Hanoi. Her English was excellent and we later learned that she is married to an Australian, which explained her Aussy accent.
Our class started off with watching a quick scene from "The Scent of Green Papaya" where the young girl from the country is being taught how to cook for the masters. Mrs. An then discussed with us the importance of different types of food in Northern Vietnamese cooking and gave us a bit of a history lesson in the culture of food in Vietnam. We learned that "no rice, no zao (green vegetables), no meal" and that MSG is an important spice that most Vietnamese would never cook without. Luckily, Mrs. An has developed Vietnamese dishes that do not use MSG and as far as we could tell they were just as good as those with MSG! In Vietnam, the meal is based around the type of vegetable that is being cooked and each vegetable has a specific cooking method. Only green vegetables, and herbs, are considered "zao"; one would never serve potatoes or carrots as a vegetable. A meal typically consists of rice, at least one vegetable dish, and one kind of soup, and if the family is very fortunate, some kind of meat. The soup is eaten at the end of the meal, to sop up the remaining rice and as a liquid instead of a drink.
As we talked about food, Mrs. An's assistant set up the cooking area so that Patrick and I could make the 4 dishes plus dipping sauce that constituted our meal. After surveying the counter with all the ingredients and recipies, An said "Ok, now you cook"! Patrick and I jumped right in, with the assistant of An and her friend, to make sweet and sour shrimp, shrimp and pork spring rolls, snake fish soup, green papaya salad and the fishy dipping sauce. We made everything from scratch and An showed us step by step how to prepare each dish, but allowed us to do the actual cooking. I was surprised at how well our spring rolls turned out, even though I managed to turn the shrimps upside down in one :-) In the end, we cooked for more than an hour and turned out an amazingly good meal! All the while we kept up a lively conversation with Mrs. An, who we found to be interesting and very knowledgable. After dinner, we ate grapefruit dipped in salt and hot pepper and a type of sticky rice that is not cooked! It was all really fantastic. Our class was topped off with a gift basket containing cooking chopsticks, a mortar and pestal for peanuts, and the recipies that we made.
This class has got to be one of the best experiences of our current trip, although it would have been made better if Anh could have joined us.
1 comment:
I am a South Vietnamese. We NEVER use MSG in our cooking . PERIOD.
There are many diffreneces between North and Souh VNmese. I guess it's the Communist things that affects the North society and cultures.
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