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Center of
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Booming
Saigon, a city on the move, lays claim to a specialty that
Vietnamese-American writer Monique Truong, author of "The Book of Salt"
and the coming "Bitter in the Mouth," calls "the ultimate on-the-go
fare": the extravagantly stuffed banh mi sandwich.
The most popular form is banh mi thit ("thit" means "meat"), a warmed
baguette spread with mayonnaise and pâté and filled with ham, headcheese
and sausage. Cucumber, tomato, cilantro, chilies, and do chua, a bracing
radish-and-carrot relish, add characteristic Vietnamese freshness.
Optional condiments include chili sauce, Maggi (a bottled sauce of Swiss
origin) and soy sauce.
Ordered to go, banh mi comes wrapped in scrap paper secured with a
rubber band, a portable meal epitomizing Saigon's "insatiable appetite
and deep desires, for better or worse, to keep moving," says Ms. Truong,
who was born in Saigon, now officially called Ho Chi Minh City.
The History
The French introduced baguettes to Vietnam, where the locals called the
narrow loaves banh tay (literally, "foreign cake"). "Banh tay were for
rich Vietnamese. They dipped them in sweetened condensed milk," recalls
83-year-old Thinh Thi Nguyen, who was born in a village near Hanoi. She
didn't eat her first baguette sandwich until she was 20; by then
Vietnamese called them banh mi ("mi" means "wheat").
In 1954 French rule ended, Vietnam was split in two, and many of the
north's shopkeepers moved to noncommunist South Vietnam. Former
northerners like 78-year-old Ding Chieu Nguyen, whose family had owned a
banh mi shop in Hanoi, made Saigon the new sandwich capital. Her Saigon
banh mi shop, Hoa Ma Quan, remains one of the city's most popular after
50 years.
Food shortages followed the end of the war and reunification of the
country in 1975, and banh mi was once again an extravagance. But
free-market reforms in the late '80s unleashed Vietnam's entrepreneurial
spirit and banh mi resurfaced, mostly as street food.
These days vendors stuff baguettes with cheese, tinned sardines in
tomato sauce, shredded chicken, grilled pork patties, meatballs in sweet
barbecue sauce, fried eggs cooked to order and, especially on the first
and 15th of the lunar month (when many Buddhists eschew meat), gluten
and bean curd.
The Setting
Baguette sandwiches are sold from shop fronts, push carts, motorbikes
and shoulder poles. "Why buy all the pieces and put them together when
it's so easy" to hit the streets? asks Saigon native Van Luk. Depending
on the time of day and the size of its baguette, banh mi can be a snack
or a meal. "I like it best in the morning and in the evening," says Ms.
Luk. "It's too heavy for lunch, when we prefer rice or soup."
Ms. Truong, however, reckons that "every hour is banh mi hour," as long
as the sandwich is eaten "within five minutes of it being made. There is
something close to alchemy," she says, "when the baguette is still hot
and has lent its warmth to the pâté and the [sausage], while not wilting
the cilantro or cucumber spears."
The Judgment
These days most baguettes are made with a combination of wheat and rice
flours, resulting in a fluffy crumb and exceptionally crackly crust.
Some consumers feel this adds a welcome textural dimension to the banh
mi, but Vietnamese old enough to remember traditional French-style
baguettes don't always agree. For Ms. Luk, the filling is the key: "The
pâté shouldn't smell too strong, the ham and pork should be excellent
quality." And the mayonnaise, she adds, should be made in-house, with
fresh eggs.
Like the city that calls the sandwich its own, banh mi continues to
evolve. Several shops in Saigon have recently introduced baguettes
stuffed with pork roasted on a spit. But die-hard fans have their
limits. "I don't want to hear about the shiitake- or portobello-mushroom
banh mi," says Ms. Truong. "I'm sure there are lovely mushroom
sandwiches, but let's not kid ourselves."
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