What is Vietnamese culture?
Vietnamese culture is a unique mix of Chinese, French, and homegrown influences. Elements characteristic to Vietnamese culture include respect for one’s elders, worship of our ancestors, appreciation of those who came before, respect for the community, and strong family values. One will also find strong symbols including dragons, turtles, lotuses, and bamboo. So many philosophies around strength, balance, health, and community form the bedrock of what we believe. To answer the question of what is Vietnamese culture, the answer begins here. Another place where it leads is towards food and cuisine, how we eat, how we cook, and why.
What is Vietnamese cuisine?
Cooking in Vietnamese cuisine uses very little oil, uses many vegetables, and pulls from rice, soy sauce, fish sauce, and more. The characteristic flavors of this style of Vietnamese eating include sweet, spicy, sour, fish sauce, and the flavors of mint and basil. Vietnam’s best and proudest dish is pho, a famous type of noodle soup with rice, beef, bean sprouts, scallions, and more. In discussing ethnic cuisines, Vietnamese routinely ranks among one of the world’s healthiest and most balanced options there is.
Vietnamese cuisine isn’t changing, Canadian habits are
In appealing to Canadian demographics, a lot of changes have been made in Vietnamese restaurants to create Asian-influenced dishes pulling from Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and Korean foods. That said, a lot about Vietnamese cuisine has remained the same. Going into a Toronto Vietnamese restaurant today, you will find so much of our culture in food has been preserved. Culturally, our food is not being left behind. If anything, it’s Canadians’ changing habits that’s resulted in them appreciating authentic Vietnamese cooking. This isn’t to say that Canadian culture’s being forgotten either but is to say that there’s a co-existence happening between Vietnamese and Canadian cultures, existing separately but as one together.
The ingredients are more accessible, thanks to multiculturalism
If you came to Canada fifty years ago from Vietnam, so much of the ingredients you needed to craft a proper Vietnamese meal couldn’t be found at local grocery stores. To find them, some Asian specialty markets may carry them but if you didn’t live in a major city like Toronto, it was unlikely you’d find them. These days, it’s so different. Authentic Vietnamese ingredients are available at almost every grocery store alongside ingredients from other cultures. Canada’s a flourishing collection of so many cultures. In terms of what this means to Vietnamese cooking, we’ve been given the chance to continue eating Vietnamese and to preserve our cultural traditions.
Why it’s important to remember
When we come to Canada, it’s a new country and culture. Remembering where we are from, with our philosophies, food, and traditions, it pays tribute to our ancestors and our families who worked so hard to give us the life we have. None of us would be here living if our ancestors had not come before us to pave the way. When we eat and cook according to family recipes, prepare authentic Vietnamese eating, and we share this with friends, it’s paying tribute to what’s come before and creating memories from what’s new in the now. It’s a thread through time, almost like an ancestor passing down to us knowledge that we can only gain by living our experience.
We are Vietnamese wherever we go
Just like the Canadians we meet on the street who will always be Canadians first and foremost, many Vietnamese as they travel the world and live in different countries will always be Vietnamese. In adapting and assimilating with Canadian culture, we cannot forget the past and where we have come from. Our cultural food cannot be forgotten either. Vietnamese food, culture, and philosophies continue to adapt. Make no mistake, these are not solid and decided. That said, what’s been given to us by our parents, grandparents, and the many generations yesteryear are things to hang onto.
Authentically prepare Vietnamese cooking exists today in the form of Vietnamese restaurants, such as TorontoPHO. When you come by, you can have yourself a big bowl of Vietnamese pho but there’s also plenty more, including fried noodles and rice, stir fried dishes, vermicelli, mango salads, chicken wings, fresh spring rolls, and more. We use fresh ingredients from Vietnam and elsewhere to deliver top cooking to our patrons. If you love Vietnamese food or want to give it a try, please have a visit. We are here and ready to take your order.
