Today, I received this SOS email from “Suzanne”:
I love your website and read it everyday! I am Vietnamese too and my dad's 60 something birthday is coming up this Sunday. He's always saying how his only little girl never cooks and invites her parents over like every Vietnamese girl should. So I am feeling like I should make a meal and invite my family over to celebrate his birthday on Sunday. But I don't know what to make!!! I would really like to make something Vietnamese but I have a big family and need to make enough to feed 10 people and 7 little nieces and nephews all under age 5. Do you have any ideas for something I can make that they would enjoy and most importantly that I cannot mess up? A bun [rice noodles] meal or something I can grill or ???
I am a pretty good cook but when it comes to Vietnamese food I feel like i can never get it to taste right...maybe because Vietnamese parents are so critical - I don't know. :)
Anyway - I know you are a busy woman but if you have a moment and can help a good Vietnamese daughter out I would REALLY REALLY appreciate it!!!
I was just about to start working on an article for the LA Times but I dropped what I was doing to respond.
Theresa’s cry for help really got me for this reason: There have been countless times when someone recounts how their parents, aunties and grandparents tell them that the Asian food of their ancestors is TOO HARD for them to master as they are TOO AMERICANIZED. Sorry, I don’t buy that. Cooking is not rocket science but a craft that you practice. Among the great benefits of coming to America is having potable water and refrigeration, both of which are conducive to cooking well.
It may be that these older folks don’t know how to show the younger generation how to prepare the foods of their heritage? Or maybe there isn’t time?
Additionally, and this is awful to say, but Asian people can be the worst critics to their own. It's awful. Why does someone have to nitpick food to death when he/she didn’t prepare it themselves? It’s as if we think our views are correct, the best, and most authentic. Lord knows, my mother can tell stories about how male guests have suggested that they know what the right flavors and techniques are for a dish, despite the fact they probably never cooked anything in their life!
Older folks: Please stop dissuading young people from attempting to master your homeland’s cuisines. It’s a terrible disservice to your family and community. Instilling guilt and fear of failure in the new generation is like shooting yourself in the foot, if your actual intention is to secure the future of your cherished foodways.
If you have thoughts or similar experiences to that of “Suzanne” tell us all what you think!
By the way, here is what I advised to “Suzanne”:
From the Viet World Kitchen site, try making this 3-course menu:
- Chao tom -- grilled shrimp on sugar cane
- Grilled lemongrass pork steaks -- have it with bun rice noodles, lettuce and fresh Viet herbs, and nuoc cham dipping sauce
- For dessert, make the corn and coconut sweet soup (che bap)
From my cookbook, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen (your library, bookstore, and Amazon.com has it) try:
Pick 1 or 2 of these as a starter:
- Baked shrimp toast or mini pate chaud savory puff pastries (totally make ahead stuff)
- Fresh corn and shiitake mushroom soup or asparagus and crab soup
- Cucumber and shrimp salad (goi dua chuot)Main course (pick 1): something beefy would probably impress your dad
- Bo Kho -- beef stew with star anise -- serve with the best French bread you can buy
- Garlicky Maggi steaks -- sear them in a pan, serve with rice or even roasted potatoes!Dessert
- Banana cake -- killer easy cake, just use overripe bananas, make it a day ahead if you want
UPDATE: Monday, 9/21 -- While we had our raging conversation here, Suzanne kept herself busy in the kitchen this weekend. This morning, I received this email report from her:
Hi Andrea!Guess what - at the last minute all my siblings bail out because
all their kids are sick and we don't like to get each other's kids sick
so it was just me and my husband, our two kids and my parents. So I
ended up making the Chao Tom which was delicious and since my dad was
craving a bowl of pho ga I decided to use your recipe. It WORKED!!!
The Pho was perfect! All they said was it was just a tad bit 'Lat' but
perfect because it allowed them to add additional nuoc mam as they like
it. So now that I know how easy pho ga is I am going to be making it
all the time. Thanks for the fabulous recipe - it's so nice to have a
recipe and not just a 'little bit of that and a little bit of this'.Of course only after we ate all the food did I remember to take
pictures. All I have is a picture of my toddler slurping the last bits
of his noodle bowl. I'll try to send you a pic when I get it
downloaded. 🙂I just wanted to tell you Thank you!!! I also saw your recipe for
Hu Tieu Nam Vang and I am going to try that next! I used to live in
Chicago and would go to this restaurant called Hai Yen and they had the
best Hu Tieu. I haven't been able to find anything that tastes like it
but your recipe sounds like it might be close. I can't wait to try it!Thanks!!!
Quite a turnaround, huh?
michelle says
wow, i whole-heartedly agree with (and unfortunately relate to) this article. i just hope i don't obtain these habits from my parents.
everyone's a critic, i guess.
Ravenous couple says
You're awesome to come to the rescue like that! We are in our twenties and early thirties and love cooking traditional cuisine on our blog. We find our families extremely supportive. Sometimes we even ask questions of random elders in the grocery stores and they have always been supportive. In our humble opinion, We don't think that vietnamese elders are any different then anyone else..
Hang says
My mom taught me some dishes but with some she said they were to complicated. I think alot of times it's because they cook by the method of a little bit of this and a little bit of that. They don't know how to explain it. Now that I cook that way, I find the same problem with teaching my kids. The best way to learn to cook something is to use a recipe and tweak it to you liking. There in lies the other problem with vietnamese cooking. How something should taste is very regional and of personal taste. I know that my mom's food tasted very different from all her friend's food. I love all my vietnamese cookbooks, including yours, but I can guarantee you that I have never made one that I haven't had to tweak to my liking. Therefore chances are that anything you make is most likely not going to please every vietnamese person. Make what you think taste good. That's why with vietnamese food you always put several varieties of condiments, seasonings, and herbs out at the table. It is so everyone can tweak their own to their liking. If I made all my food as spicy as I like it, My kids would die. 🙂 I add most of my spices at the table. Don't be intimidated and practice makes perfect. My brothers now think my food is better then our moms.
Flower / Hoa says
I completely agree, however, I feel I am lucky.
When I was little (single digit age), if I was over at Ong & Ba Ngoai's house, I'd be in the kitchen asking question after question as he cooked. Basically a string of questions "What is that?" "How much did you use?" "Why?" . Ong Ngoai was always happy to answer my questions. It seemed to bring a smile to his face that this little brat wanted to know so much about what he was doing.
Which then brings me to my Mother. Who, in her own right, is an amazing Chef. I don't remember a day in my life where she wasn't in a kitchen, either at home or at work. I'd give my left arm to be able to cook like her now. When I was young, I did the same thing with her as I did with Ong Ngoai. Asked her question after question. However, she put me to work while I was in the kitchen. Which always made sense to me. Doesn't make sense to stand around asking questions when instead I could make myself useful and still ask questions.
My entire life growing up and living at home, I was always in the kitchen helping prepare meals. It didn't matter if it was a simple dinner or Tet.
Now that I no longer live at home, I'm nowhere near home, I noticed I cook less. Once I realized that, I started asking Mom questions again while we chatted on the phone or in emails. She's not here to help me physically but I still have the knowledge sunk deep in my brain, just gotta dig it out.
Mostly now I just want Vietnamese or other Asian cuisine. I'm finding my body is missing it and isn't reacting nicely. So, I'll ask all the questions I can think of then more ... and if I'm lucky, I find blogs (like this one!) that have recipes that are similiar to what I grew up on; I just got to tweak them.
I, however, am my WORST critic. Deep down I know Mom's will always taste better, even if I matched it exactly ... I just need to remind myself that it takes practice and I can make adjustments a long the way. I'm not generally a patient person so I can easily discourage myself but when it comes to cooking the foods I know and love - I'll get it eventually!
Angela says
Oh my gosh, sounds like MY story. I came to the States in 75 at the age of 10. In VN we had domestic help for everything, I never set foot in the kitchen. Immediately upon arrival my mother went to work, my father stayed home and ordered me to cook. VN men don't cook, you know that. All my attempts were failures. Ha ha ha. Later in life whenever my mother visited me and ate my cooking, she always had something terrible to say, "Lạt nhách! Dở ẹt!" Needless to say I don't cook for her anymore. Whenever she visited me we would go out to dinner, and I avoided VN restaurants, because she would never be happy with them, either.
I've learned to cook some simple VN things in the last couple of years. Don't need to do too much, as my non-VN hubby and kids don't need too many fancy VN things. The basic stuff is all they go for.
To this day, I'm scared to death of being near older VN people.
Andrea Nguyen says
My, what an amazing outpouring of personal insights and stories. Thank you.
Ravenous Couple -- love the work that you do on on http://ravenouscouple.blogspot.com/. Keep it UP!
Hang -- I wholeheartedly agree that you need to personalize the food that you cook or it's not really yours. For me, recipes are guidelines and instructions. When a recipe is well written, it's like having a friend (not your mother!) in the kitchen with you. I encourage people that food is just food. Don't take is seriously but do heed the parameters before you go off on major riffs.
Flower/Hoa -- I'm in the same boat, sista! I too am my worst critic. It's like self-flagellation. However, there's something to be said about trying to make something excellent.
Angela (and everyone else too!) -- Don't be afraid of the critical older folks. Yes -- like Ravenous Couple says -- criticism crosses race and ethnic lines. Some people don't know how to pay a compliment or encourage others, and that's unfortunate. But why not turn that around and prove them wrong? Maybe they'll change?
Dave Weinstein says
I have trouble seeing how parents have room to criticize -- who failed to teach their children how to cook in the first place?
That being said, I'd be very reluctant to have a "big family event" as a first attempt. That is putting an awful lot of weight and stress on things, and learning to make a multi-dish multi-course meal come out on time is its own special skill.
The same problem often shows up around Thanksgiving. People who don't cook feel compelled (often because they are the oldest in the family now) to host Thanksgiving. And they hold themselves up to the standards set by their mother and/or grandmother, who cooked every day for decades, and the pressure is remarkable.
Cooking is fundamentally about practice. There are lots of things to learn (knife skills, techniques, ratios, and how ingredients tend to interact), but really, it's about practice.
If you enjoy cooking, the practice is in and of itself fun. If you don't enjoy cooking, you probably shouldn't make yourself crazy.
Eric Gower says
You're a heroine, Andrea! Everything you've written is true with ALL cultures!
Christine says
Andrea, You are so right! My Korean Mother used to push me out of the way and cook it herself.
Tangled Noodle says
My experience has a bit of a twist: when I was growing up, we had a housekeeper who cooked most of our meals (mainly Filipino dishes). My mother is a wonderful cook but she was (still is) drawn to preparing Western (i.e. European, American) cuisine. So, I had little opportunity (well, interest really) in learning to cook Filipino food.
As an adult, I have craved these dishes as part of my sense of identity; unfortunately, there are no restaurants that serve them where I live. As a result, I've had to learn how to prepare Filipino food based on memories of flavor (from childhood and recollected once-a-year trips to California where I can gorge at Pinoy restaurants) and e-mail consultations with my mother in Manila.
She and my relatives have been nothing but enthusiastic about my endeavors. I think that for them, my wanting to learn to cook Filipino food is akin to my returning to the 'fold' - proof that I haven't become so Americanized that I've forgotten that I'm a Filipina.
I've become quite adept at some dishes and I hope that someday soon, I'll be able to show off my skills to my family!
Marvin says
I can definitely relate to Suzanne's plight. When I first started cooking Filipino food, my own mother was very critical of how I did things in the kitchen. It was so bad that I now never cook at my mom's house because she's always hovering over me in the kitchen and telling me what I'm doing wrong. I kept at it though, cooking food on my own in my own kitchen, and my mother's criticisms eventually softened (though they haven't completely gone).
I agree with you completely Andrea, it's a complete disservice to any culture when younger generations are dissuaded from learning about it. But I think the key is to be persistent, and keep cooking. Mistakes will always happen in the kitchen, but it's a greater mistake to not be in the kitchen at all because we're scared of our "super-critical Asian mothers" 😉
Lan says
My experience is a little different. When I started to learn to cook for myself, I began to understand that my mom wasn't the the flawless cook that I had created in my mind. She could prepare wonderful dishes when she put in the effort but like a normal person, there were bad dishes along with the good. I can still remember one Thanksgiving when she put soy sauce in the gravy (she likes to experiment with fusion food). It ended up horribly salty so I make an effort every year to stop her from doctoring the gravy. Even though she isn't a perfect cook, I still have a lot to learn from her.
I believe the tendency for Asians to criticize food stems from the history of street food in Asia. People eat out a lot more in Asia compared to their western counterparts because street food is cheap, tastes good, and can make a satisfying meal. Being picky is natural if you want to choose among the vast number of dining options in a timely fashion.
Lan says
I made a mistake in my gravy story. My mom used oyster sauce, not soy sauce, in the gravy because it wasn't thickening fast enough. She was used to the faster thickening properties of cornstarch and thus got impatient since gravies use flour as the thickening agent.
Whenever I cook for my friends, I sometimes think they are too forgiving when dishes don't turn out the way the way I wanted them to.
Andrea Nguyen says
Thanks, everyone for sharing your opinions and experiences. I imagine that each of us has had to deal with demons in the form of hyper-critical old people chasing after us with woks and chopsticks! (Now you know one of the nightmares I suffered while writing Into the Vietnamese Kitchen.) But we've all cooked enough to be masters of our own kitchen and cuisines. That should be lauded.
Whether or not you have a blog, kids, nieces, or nephews, it's so important to cook and feed them good food, and to tell them a bit of history and culture along the way. That's all so much part of the human experience -- to capture the connections between people and the flavors that they care about.
Keep it up! For the bloggers who commented just now, thanks for motivating people to cook through our work:
Eric Gower: http://breakawaycook.com
Tangled Noodle: http://tanglednoodle.blogspot.com Marvin: http://burntlumpia.typepad.com
thuy says
I had to learn to cook out of neccessity. When you are in college, what can you do but learn to cook to ease some of the homesickness. My mother wasn't the best cook in the world because it is more important to her to work. Whatever she made, she made well. She never taught me how to cook and she said that you don't need to know how, just be motivated enough to cook.
Everytime I come home, I would cook for my parents. My mom would enjoy what I make but my dad always criticize my cooking. He didn't agree to the flavors but I cooked for them with whatever is available locally. One day, after hearing my dad complain about how he didn't like my pho, being the b*tch that I am, asked him to make pho for me. He went to set me straight. It come out so bland that even my sister, with her Americanized taste, couldn't even eat it. He never complained again. He happily ate whatever it was that I made.
Marilou says
LOL I am accomplished cook and I teach in a cooking school. But when I cook Filipino dishes for my mom, she ivariably says that I should have let her do the cooking because it doesn't taste right! Oh well...
Didi says
I read this and chuckled a little bit...I think with any minority group we are too hard on our own kind...I grew up with that and ignored it...and I do agree...cooking is something anyone can master and enjoy...I am not viet and I have never cooked viet food...but out of the blue I decided to surprise my boyfriend with some food...he was shocked and said it taste like his mom...I did not surprise him to be nice...I was getting back at him because when I asked if I could get some viet recipes he blew me off saying I could not learn viet food because I am not viet...sucka...anyone can learn anything...so far I have made Bun Bo Hue and Bitter Melon Soup with no issues...I am making Bo Kho now and want to learn sticky rice...I must admit I will probably jack up the sticky rice...any tips :)...
Andrea Nguyen says
Tuty, a frequent visitor to this site, sent this comment via email as he couldn't post because of a computer glitch:
There is constructive criticism and then there is just pure b!tchin'. I am lucky that my beloved late mother never criticized me just for the hell of it. She would tell me how things could be improved and if things has met or exceeded her expectation she would tell me too.
Her recipes are also by intuition and she said that I needed to develop my own intuition. Therefore, those of you who still have mom's presence, just take the necessary comments and bypass the unnecessary criticism. When she's gone, suddenly I felt that I should have asked her more and always "heard" what she said when I prepare dishes from home.
Peace.
Carol Nguyen says
Don't be discouraged about Vietnamese Cuisine. I am Caucasian and my husband is Vietnamese. It took me many years to learn, but I have pretty much mastered "authentic" Vietnamese cuisine.
I learned from asking the older people questions, asking for their recipes, reading online, reading books, chatting with people in Vietnam, online. It all comes together after a while. My mother and father-in-law think I cook just like one of their own. Some of my friends say I cook better than their parents that were born & raised in Vietnam. Keep studying & asking questions! Don't give up.
Anh says
Our family has always worked in the kitchen together for as long as I could remember, albeit the kids always were left with the prep work. My mom is similar to "Suzanne's" elders, in that she may push me aside sometimes when she wants certain things done her way, but as my cooking trials have gotten better, her ways have softened as well. The way food should taste is very particular to each individual, and in that sense I will alter my dishes a bit depending upon the guests that I am recieving that day. I take their negative or positive comments and alter my dishes in ways that will appease their palates and thus the comments turn from negative to positive. It's unfortunate that some elders have a tendency of criticizing, but that can't be changed. What can change is how you view their comments and respond to them. In any case, I totally agree with Carol's comment - "don't give up!" Cooking like anything else is a lot about practice and execution. It has very little to do with inherent talent.
Andrea Nguyen says
Carol and Anh, look at how your persistence pays off. Lord knows I practiced and practice making rice in a pot until I got it right. But I still goof up a few times a year!
At the end of the day, it's just food. And, tomorrow is always another set of tasty meal.
Mai M. says
I think it's hard for the older generation to teach us how to cook. Everything is by taste and experience. There are no recipes or exact measurements to each recipe. Until this day, my mom always says she could never make certain dishes like my grandma did which, unfortunately, I never had a chance to try. On the other hand, to us, my mom makes the best Bo Kho, Ca Ri Ga, Soup Mang Cua, Bun Xao Kho, and Mam Nem. Yet she could never show us how. She always says whenever I crave for those dishes, she can make it and even extra for me to take home. (Note that I'm married and don't live close to her.)
My husband's grandmother is a very good cook. She's been a home-maker for over 75 years. Same thing (by the way, my in-laws are Japanese), neither my mother-in-law and/or his uncle can create the dishes that she used to make. One of the uncle made a comment that 'theirs are close but nothing like grandma'. God blesses her heart. She's 94 now and still does thing on the clock. 2pm everyday, she starts preparing for dinner. On New Year's Day, she would cook from 6:30am 'til 9pm, no break. Amazing the energy and the attitude that she has.
Anyway, like you said, at the end of the it's just food. Everyone's taste is different. But sometimes, I do believe foods bring people together...
Mangobelle says
Hi Andrea:
I am from the West Indies and I have had the same experience as many of your readers. My working mom did not have time to teach me how to cook. Her aim was to get food on to the table as fast as possible so we could eat. When I was old enough to try dishes on my own, I discovered that my great aunts, all superb cooks, measured everything by the 'handful' and the "l'il bit". At one point in desperation, I poured flour into my great aunt's hand and measured how much it could hold. Now that I can cook I realize that good cooks have internal measuring standards. They know how much a pinch is or how much a handful is because they have years of practice. The problem in modern society comes when our generation does not have time to sit around the kitchen and observe for hours. We want a book, website or CD to convey the information quickly and precisely. The cuisines that are lucky enough to have people like you to bridge the information gap are the ones that will survive.
Phuoc says
Hi Andrea,
I am from Australia (Sydney) and I bought your book (Into the Vietnamese Kitchen) a few years ago because I wanted a Vietnamese recipe book as it can be a bit hard to learn how to cook vietnamese food from my parents. Having 6 children, they often short-cut everything that they cook in order to feed us quickly. So nowadays their food doesn't taste the way they did back when there was only a few of us -often lacking in flavour. The only thing that I tried making from your book was Banh Xeo, but even then when I was making it my dad decided to take over and short-cut it by cooking all the meat first up rather than cooking it individually for each banh xeo.. So I stopped cooking for a while. However, after stumbling on your blog I have a sudden urge to start cooking vietnamese food now and I now know that I have something I can refer to for advice.
Cheers!
Andrea Nguyen says
Mai -- Sometimes folks don't want to show you how to make something because then they won't have a special of a place in your life anymore. They just don't realize that you'll just be coming back for more recipes!
Mangobelle -- Love your insights and parallel experiences. And, that you took charge of the situation!
Phuoc -- LOL, go for it again! You can do it. Make banh xeo for your dad and he'll think that you're the best.
Thien-Kim says
I have loved reading all these comments and stories. My mother was a MacGyver in the kitchen, and she passed those skills on to me (the MacGyver skills, not necessarily the cooking ones). All she ever wanted me to do was to memorise was the flavour and texture of food, and then whatever I needed to do to replicate that flavour and texture was what I needed to do to cook. Writing it down now makes it sounds like a gentle kitchen experience, but I remember my mother's most frequent admonishment "Use your brain! Figure it out! Don't be lazy! Think!" as pretty intimidating to my kid-self. But also so, so liberating now that I'm an adult, because it's kind of a carte blanche to cook what pleases me. *laughs* However, I think my Vietnamese palate is a wee bit off from other folks' Vietnamese palates because when requested to pick a Vietnamese restaurant, I have yet to pick one that meet others' standards. I usually solve this problem by having others pick, but if I must, I always just pick one I like.