We here at SAVEUR often have a culinary curiosity that borders on obsession—be it a cuisine, an ingredient, or a cultural tradition. All it takes sometimes is a single dish to pull us down a rabbit hole. Our latest fixation is the banh mi, the uniquely Vietnamese sandwich that we could happily eat for every meal. Luckily, we got Andrea Nguyen, the author of Vietnamese Food Any Day (our Cookbook Club pick this month!), to break down the best way to build a banh mi. She writes, “People often act as if there is a holy grail of banh mi authenticity. But like a lot of Vietnamese dishes, these sandwiches are very casual and flexible, hard to mess up or interpret too loosely.”
This is the approach Nguyen takes throughout her book, emphasizing that anyone can cook Vietnamese food, as long as they have an understanding of the foundations. She's all for adapting classic dishes and taking smart shortcuts while staying true to the integrity of traditional flavors. As she tells writer Dan Q. Dao in the Q&A below, “Refugees and immigrants made do until we could go to an Asian market. That notion of finding workarounds and creating food rooted in foundations is what makes this book modern Vietnamese-American.” It’s a discussion we can’t wait to continue in SAVEUR Cookbook Club this month—join the conversation and cook along with us in our Facebook group, and don’t forget to show off your banh mi on social media with #saveurcookbookclub.
