By Daniel Leibovitz, Semester at Sea, Spring 2017
Being in Vietnam was an incredible adventure. The food contained such vivid flavors and I really loved how they used such an array of different vegetable and spices to create a firework display inside of your mouth.
I tried a sampling of food from a few different locations around the country like Phö in Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon, Elephant Ear fish on the Mekong Delta and made Lotus Flower fried rice in a cooking class. With the large access to fresh fruit and vegetables made the food have such an incredible taste and to me really showed the effort that people put into making the food.
I had the opportunity to try many kinds of sea food, vegetarian food, river food, and ocean food while being in this country. Everything was a bit of an adventure and all the food was amazing.
In picture 1, is a soup made in a small village off the coast of the Mekong Delta. It contained phö noodles and a quail egg which by the way was cooked to perfection. The flavors played a little game of going from sweet to sour and then to savory after biting into the egg. I really enjoyed the taste and learning how to make the soup helped me make a connection to the people in a different way
Vietnamese coffee (picture 3) is incredible thick and super delicious. Being able to add the condensed milk to the incredibly thick and rich coffee was a treat. The Vietnamese people are incredibly sweet and are willing to bend over backwards to make sure that visitors are happy. The hospitality and culture of the people makes me want to count down the days until I get to return.
