Pho ( ) is a Vietnamese soup dish consisting of broth, rice noodles (), herbs, and meat – usually beef (), and sometimes chicken (). Pho is a popular food in Vietnam where it is served in households, street-stalls, and restaurants nationwide. Residents of the city of Nam Định were the first to create Vietnamese traditional pho.
Pho is a relatively recent addition to the country's cuisine, first appearing in written records in the early 20th century in Northern Vietnam. After the Vietnam War, refugees popularized it throughout the world. Due to limited historical documentation, the origins of pho remain debated. Influences from both French and Chinese culinary traditions are believed to have contributed to its development in Vietnam, as well as to the etymology of its name. The Hanoi (northern) and Saigon (southern) styles of pho differ by noodle width, sweetness of broth, and choice of herbs and sauce.
In 2017, Vietnam made December 12 the "Day of Pho" (Ngày của Phở).
History
Phở originated in Northern Vietnam in the early 20th century. It either evolved independently from, or shares a similar origin with, beef noodle soups found in neighboring countries, where dishes such as kuay teow reua of Thailand or ngau naam ho fun () and niu pahu () of Guangdong and Yunnan provinces of China, are common. While the rice noodles and the spices used in the broth of phở have a connection with Chinese culinary traditions, beef consumption was not widespread among the Vietnamese because they traditionally used water buffaloes for farming. The demand for beef only appeared under French colonial rule, leading some to attribute phở's origins to French, Chinese, or a combination of both influences. However, its exact origins remain a topic of debate.
During French colonial rule (1887–1954), the French introduced pot-au-feu, a slow-cooked beef stew, and the use of beef bones for broth mirrors French consommé techniques. However dishes with a similar preparation to phở using water buffalo meat, such as xáo trâu have long been staples to the rural cuisine. Villagers in say they ate phở long before the French colonial period. The modern form emerged between 1900 and 1907 in northern Vietnam, southeast of Hanoi in Nam Định Province, then a substantial textile market. The traditional home of phở is reputed to be the villages of and (or ) in Đông Xuân commune, Nam Trực District, Nam Định Province.
Cultural historian and researcher Trịnh Quang Dũng believes that the popularization and origins of modern pho stemmed from the intersection of several historical and cultural factors in the early 20th century. These include improved availability of beef due to French demand, which in turn produced beef bones that were purchased by Chinese workers to make into a beef noodle similar to phở called (牛肉粉 or 牛腩粉) or ngau juk fun. The Yunnan-style herbal beef soup is called niupahu (牛扒呼) or ngau paa fu in Cantonese. The demand for this dish was initially the greatest with workers from the provinces of Yunnan and Guangdong, who had an affinity for the dish due to its similarities to that of their homeland, which eventually popularized and familiarized this dish with the general population.
Phở was originally sold as a snack at dawn and dusk by street vendors, who shouldered mobile kitchens on carrying poles (). From the pole hung two wooden cabinets, one housing a cauldron over a wood fire, the other storing noodles, spices, cookware, and space to prepare a bowl of phở. The heavy was always shouldered by men. They kept their heads warm with distinctive felt hats called .
Hanoi's first two fixed phở stands were a Vietnamese-owned Cát Tường on Cầu Gỗ Street and a Chinese-owned stand in front of Bờ Hồ tram stop. They were joined in 1918 by two more on Quạt Row and Đồng Row. Around 1925, a Vân Cù villager named Vạn opened the first "Nam Định style" pho stand in Hanoi. Peddler declined in number around 1936–1946 in favor of stationary eateries.
Development
In the late 1920s, various vendors experimented with , sesame oil, tofu, and even Lethocerus indicus extract (). This "" failed to enter the mainstream.
, served with rare beef, had been introduced by 1930. Chicken pho appeared in 1939, possibly because beef was not sold at the markets on Mondays and Fridays at the time.
With the partition of Vietnam in 1954, over a million people fled North Vietnam for South Vietnam. Phở, which was relatively less consumed in the South, suddenly became popular. No longer confined to northern culinary traditions, variations in meat and broth appeared, and additional garnishes, such as lime, mung bean sprouts (), culantro (), cinnamon basil (), Hoisin sauce (), and hot Sriracha sauce () became standard fare. also began to rival fully cooked in popularity. Migrants from the North similarly popularized sandwiches.
Meanwhile, in North Vietnam, private phở restaurants were nationalized () and began serving phở noodles made from old rice. Street vendors were forced to use noodles made of imported potato flour. Officially banned as capitalism, these vendors prized portability, carrying their wares on and setting out plastic stools for customers.
During the so-called subsidy period following the Vietnam War, state-owned pho eateries served a meatless variety of the dish known as pilotless pho (), in reference to the U.S. Air Force's unmanned reconnaissance drones. The broth consisted of boiled water with MSG added for taste, as there were often shortages of various foodstuffs like meat and rice during that period. Bread or cold rice was often served as a side dish, leading to the present-day practice of dipping (deep-fried wheat flour dough) in pho.
Pho eateries were privatized as part of Đổi Mới. Many street vendors must still maintain a light footprint to evade police enforcing the street tidiness rules that replaced the ban on private ownership.
Globalization
In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Vietnamese refugees brought phở to many countries. Restaurants specializing in phở appeared in numerous Asian neighborhoods and Little Saigons, such as in Paris and in major cities in the United States, Canada, and Australia. In 1980, the first of hundreds of phở restaurants opened in the Little Saigon in Orange County, California.
In the United States, phở began to enter the mainstream during the 1990s, as relations between the U.S. and Vietnam improved. At that time Vietnamese restaurants began opening quickly in Texas and California, spreading rapidly along the Gulf and West Coasts, as well as the East Coast and the rest of the country. During the 2000s, phở restaurants in the United States generated US$500 million in annual revenue, according to an unofficial estimate. Phở can now be found in cafeterias at many college and corporate campuses, especially on the West Coast.
The word "pho" was added to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary in 2007. is listed at number 28 on "World's 50 Most Delicious Foods", compiled by CNN Go in 2011. The Vietnamese Embassy in Mexico celebrated Phở Day on April 3, 2016, with Osaka Prefecture holding a similar commemoration the following day. Phở has been adopted by other Southeast Asian cuisines, including Lao and Hmong cuisine. It sometimes appears as "Phô" on menus in Australia.
Modern era In recent decades, phở has evolved beyond its traditional form, with new variations emerging to cater to modern tastes and preferences. One notable innovation is , where the ingredients of phở are wrapped in fresh rice noodles, creating a new dish that has gained popularity in Hanoi.
Phở's influence has even extended into the cocktail scene, with bars like Nê offering phở-inspired cocktails that incorporate the soup's signature spices.
Additionally, chefs such as Peter Cuong Franklin have brought phở into the realm of fine dining, as exemplified by his Michelin-starred restaurant Anan Saigon, where phở is deconstructed into a multi-course meal.
The inaugural Day of Pho (Ngày của Phở) event was organized by Tuổi Trẻ newspaper and Acecook Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City on December 12, 2017. At its launch, Tuổi Trẻ stated that it had proposed official recognition of December 12 as Day of Pho. The program was subsequently held annually as a cultural and culinary event promoting Vietnamese pho.
Etymology and origins
Reviews of 19th and 20th-century Vietnamese literature have found that pho entered the mainstream sometime in the 1910s. Georges Dumoutier's extensive 1907 account of Vietnamese cuisine omits any mention of phở. The word appears in a short story published in 1907.Huỳnh Tịnh Của,Tống Tử Vưu truyền [Legend of Tong Tu Vuu] (1907). Lòng mừng phời phở [頗] bang ngân ra đi (“I'm glad that the pho is gone”). This passage is cited in Đại Từ Điển Chữ Nôm (Great Nôm dictionary, 1998) by Vu Van Kinh. Nguyễn Công Hoan recalls its sale by street vendors in 1913. A 1931 dictionary is the first to define as a soup: "from the word . A dish consisting of small slices of rice cake boiled with beef." Translated into English:
Possibly the earliest English-language reference to pho was in the book Recipes of All Nations, edited by Countess Morphy in 1935: In the book, pho is described as "an Annamese soup held in high esteem ... made with beef, a veal bone, onions, a bay leaf, salt, and pepper, and a small teaspoon of nuoc-mam (fish sauce)."
There are two prevailing theories on the origin of the word and, by extension, the dish itself. As author Nguyễn Dư notes, both questions are significant to Vietnamese identity.
From French
Some historians suggest a connection to the French due to the introduction of beef as a staple ingredient during French colonial rule. French settlers commonly ate beef, whereas Vietnamese traditionally ate pork and chicken and used cattle primarily as beasts of burden. Gustave Hue (1937) equates to the French beef stew (literally, "pot on the fire"). Accordingly, Western sources generally maintain that is derived from in both name and substance.Bloom, Dan, "What's that Pho? - French loan words in Vietnam hark back to the colonial days" Taipei Times, May 29, 2010. However, several scholars dispute this etymology, pointing to the significant differences between the two dishes. Another suggestion of a separate origin is that phở in French has long been pronounced rather than : in Jean Tardieu's (1928), a soup vendor cries "Pho-ô!" in the street.
Many Hanoians explain that the word derives from French soldiers' ordering "" (fire) from , referring to both the steam rising from a bowl of phở and the wood fire seen glowing from a in the evening.
Food historian Erica J. Peters argues that the French has embraced phở in a way that overlooks its origins as a local improvisation, reinforcing "an idea that the French brought modern ingenuity to a traditionalist Vietnam". The connection between phở and the French culinary tradition remains widely debated but remains a prominent theory in discussions of its origins.
From Cantonese
Another possible origin links phở to Chinese influences. Hue and Eugène Gouin (1957) suggest that may be a shortened form of and that it is derived from (), which means "beef noodles". This dish was sold by Chinese immigrants in Hanoi. This etymology is supported by the 1931 dictionary definition of phở and the influence of Chinese culinary traditions, including the use of rice noodles and spices in the broth. ( is an allophone of in some northern dialects of Vietnamese.)