Traditional Vietnamese cooking has often been characterised as using fresh ingredients, not using much dairy or oil, having interesting textures, and making use of herbs and vegetables. The cuisine is also low in sugar and is almost always naturally gluten-free, as many of the dishes are rice-based instead of wheat-based, made with rice noodles, papers and flour. Vietnamese cuisine is strongly influenced not only by the cuisines of neighbouring China, Cambodia and Laos, but also by French cuisine due to French colonial rule over the region from 1887 to 1954.
The Key Flavours
Meals feature a combination of five fundamental tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and spicy. The distinctive nature of each dish reflects one or more elements (such as nutrients and colours), which are also based around a five-pronged philosophy. Vietnamese recipes use ingredients like lemongrass, ginger, mint, Vietnamese mint, long coriander, Saigon cinnamon, bird’s eye chilli, lime, and Thai basil leaves.
