Cookbooks

Into the Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Foodways, Modern Flavors

by Andrea Nguyen

Ten Speed, 344 pp., $35

Cookbooks dealing exclusively with Vietnamese cuisine are rare. Rarer still are excellent ones, those books that reach deepest into the soul of the food. This new release from Andrea Nguyen does just that. The food writer and culinary instructor left Saigon with her family one week before its fall to the North, her mother carrying little besides her treasured family recipe collection. That collection became the basis for this book and a means to bridge the family's old and new lives, combined with the knowledge and culinary skills Nguyen has acquired in the ensuing 31 years.

Nguyen's 175-plus recipes take the reader into the village kitchens of Vietnam's grandmothers, presenting a wide range of recipes that are clearly written and easy to follow. From snacks translated from the native language as "gifts to the Mouth" to sweets to palate-refreshers, she includes all aspects of Vietnamese cuisine. There are especially comprehensive sections on charcuterie and pickling, themselves essential elements. Her headnotes explain not only what Vietnamese cooks do, but how and why they do it. She passionately interjects personal anecdotes into the descriptions, which make the book an entertaining memoir for those who never plan on cooking a single dish. Most importantly, Nguyen provides a culturally rich and delicious tour of all Vietnam has to offer on the plate: a dynamic description of a nation's culinary heritage told through the focus of her family's kitchen.