As pho came to be popularized all over Vietnam, the southern portion of the country was where a lot of agriculture too place with many prosperous farms here. Adding in herbs and different farm-based ingredients was South Vietnam’s re-interpretation of the dish. This brought Thai basil, chili sauce, bean sprouts, lime wedges and more into the mix.
For years, pho was a go-to in traditional Vietnamese cuisine. During the late 1950s though, the ingredients used in pho was considered a waste of resources and thereby, restaurants and street vendors selling it were instead provided by government potato and wheat flour imported from the Soviet Union to make the dish. Forced to do so, the pho sold throughout this time was something entirely different – tasteless, tough, and even rotten at times. Some vendors stopped selling it altogether, refusing to comply with government demands on what could and could not be included in pho.
Similar to how prohibition-era speak-easys would pop up to serve clientele alcohol, identical conditions in Vietnam made pho go underground. Anyone searching for real pho could find it if they knew were to look. Then, in the 1970s and beyond, as Vietnamese refugees left their homeland and began to settle all over the world, they brought different pho recipes with them. In time, these people began to open restaurants where different variations were prepared – including some using American and Canadian-based ingredients. Adding chicken was one variation, something which was long considered inappropriate in the traditional Vietnamese recipe.
Today, pho is seen as Vietnam’s national dish. Pho’s held up in North America as one of the healthiest Vietnamese foods there is. Pho continues to involve and incorporate new flavours, coming up with all sorts of interesting variations. Needless to say, there are hundreds of ways to prepare pho. If you love North American soups, pho is somewhat similar although distinctly Vietnamese. We hope you give it a try and you like it as much as us!
Come drop in on Toronto Pho any time and grab your own bowl of your favourite pho. Choose from plenty of flavours, each one prepared as authentically as possible. Pho’s proven to be a phenomenon in North American cuisine and is perhaps the purest representation of the Vietnamese influence on contemporary Canadian cooking.
