The History of Pho

I try to find " Phở " whenever I travel.  This humble Vietnamese beef noodle soup first started out as a street food, a quick and cheap meal for the common laborers at ports along the Red River in North Vietnam more than 100 years ago. Yet now it is an international symbol of Vietnamese cuisine just like hamburger to American food culture and symbolism worldwide.

I found phở in Dubai with one restaurant serving in a 5 liter bowl.  One can have phở in exotic Casablanca and of all places, New Delhi where cows are still sacred. It is fashionable in Shanghai where the waitresses serving  phở are dressed up in ao dai with the conical hat. In Tel Aviv, there is a small group of Vietnamese expatriates and some making a living by opening phở restaurants.   There are a dozen phở restaurants in New Zealand which is far down under.  I even had phở  far up north close to the Artic Circle in Finland.  And from the land where Homo sapiens took their first upright walk and spread their genes across the globe, you can find phở in Johannesburg.

Phở reflects the diaspora identity of the Vietnamese as they disperse throughout the world after the Vietnam War ended in 1975.

The History of Phở and Its Origin

We know that phở started out as a street food in Ha Noi, the ancient capital city, and Nam Dinh (90 km SE of Ha Noi).  The noodle soup was served as breakfast or late night snack.  Both cities claim to be the birth place of phở. 

The first mentioning of the word "Phở" was noted in a letter sending back from Paris to his family in Ha Noi by a businessman named Vinh van Nguyen in 1906.  He lamented how he missed Vietnam every time he heard street vendors peddling their goods in Paris, for they reminded him of the phở street vendors and their unique holler calling attention to their steamy hot noodle soup.  In 1913, the novelist Hoan cong Nguyen wrote about eating phở late in the night and how it costed him 2 pennies for a bowl of phở.

Phở must have been popular enough to catch the eyes of the Frenchman Henri Oger.  In his oversize illustrated book titled Technique du Peuple Anamite 1908-1909,  it has an illustration of a phở street vendor carrying on a pole two cabinets containing  soup pot, noodles and condiments.  However, the chinese characters indicated that food in the picture is "ngưu nhục phấn" (Chinese: 牛肉粉)  which literally means beef meat noodles.  We will elaborate more about this dish since it is closely related to phở.

In 1913, the artist Mauric Salge painted a picture of a phở street vendor peddling the food late at night in Ha Noi.   

Back then, a phở street vendor must have a fine sense of balance to be able to carry on his shoulder a long wooden pole with one end dangling a cabinet with a boiling pot of soup sitting on top of a coal burning cauldron,  and the other end with a cabinet full of noodle, beef, fish sauce, bowls and chopsticks.  Here are some more pictures of the street vendors and their customers in the early 1900s.

What is the Phở ?

Phở's main spice ingredient usually derived from the Chinese Five Spice mix (cloves, fennel, star anise, cinnamon and Szechuan peppercorns), charred onions and ginger.   The clear broth is the result of slow cooked beef bones and oxtail. The seasoning is done with fish sauce of course.  The soup is poured over rice noodle with thin cuts of beef flank or brisket, and garnished with chili peppers, green and white onions. 

From limited available information, it seems that phở has been around at least before 1906,  but after 1895 since well known Vietnamese dictionary by Cua tinh Huynh published in 1895, and Vietnamese-French dictionary by Genibrel, J.F.M., published in 1898,  did not have the word "Phở".  

The origin of the word "phở" has a number of theories.   We know the word for rice noodle in Chinese is pronounced "phấn".  During the same period, Chinese immigrant in Ha Noi sold a dish called "ngưu nhục phấn" (Chinese: 牛肉粉)  which lieterally means beef meat noodles.  In his "Vietnamese, Chinese &; French Dictionary",  Eugène  Gouin (1957) defined the word phở as the corruption of the word phấn. 

 In 1931, a Vietnamese association of language and cultural studies called Hội Khai Trí Tiến Đức or its French name  l'Association pour la Formation Intellectuelle et Morale des Annamites, published  at that time the most comprehensive Vietnamese dictionary - Việt Nam Tự Điển.  On page 443 of the dictionary, the word Phở is defined:  Originally derived from the word phấn.  Food made by rice noodle cooked with beef....

A Reception with Governor General Varenne at Hội Khai Trí Tiến Đức Headquarters (April, 1926)

According to wikipedia, Phở might evolve from a dish called xáo trâu:

Originally eaten by commoners near the Red River, it consisted of stir-fried strips of water buffalo meat served in broth atop rice vermicelli. Around 1908–1909, the shipping industry brought an influx of laborers. Vietnamese and Chinese cooks set up gánh to serve them xáo trâu but later switched to inexpensive scraps of beef set aside by butchers who sold to the French.  Chinese vendors advertised this xáo bò by crying out, "Beef and noodles!" or "ngưu nhục phấn". Eventually the street cry became "Meat and noodles!"  or "nhục phấn" , with the last syllable elongated.  The author Nguyễn Ngọc Bích suggests that the final "n" was eventually dropped because of the similar-sounding phân or "excrement".   This is likely what the Vietnamese poet Tản Đà calls "nhục-phở" in "Đánh bạc" ("Gambling"), written around 1915–1917.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pho#cite_note-Vuong_Trung_Hieu-9

Chinese Beef Meat Noodles - Ngưu nhục phấn

There is a minority opinion that favors the idea that phở evolved from the French beef stew pot-au-feu.  And the word "phở" is the Vietnamese pronunciation of feu.

Pot-au-feu is is a thick stew often composes of beef, potatoes, carrots, onions, other vegetables and usually eat with bread.  There is a stark difference between the two soups, one is clear broth serves over rice noodle, the other one is a heavy stew serves with bread. 

Whatever is the origin of phở, it became popular in Saigon as the result of  the large migration of people from the north in 1954 to escape the communist regime.   Here, in adoption to the Mekong delta flavor,  the dish is garnished additionally with Thai basil, culandro (saw tooth herb), bean sprout, black soy bean sauce and red chili paste.  

And then came the mass exodus after the Fall of Saigon in 1975 ,  Vietnamese refugees escaped Vietnam seeking freedom with only clothes on their backs and memories of their homeland to start a new life in whichever country that would welcome them.  They also took with them their cuisine. Phở now becomes a common lexicon in many languages and universally recognized as a popular but unique Vietnamese dish.

On a personal level, thirty years ago,  I introduced phở to a young and ambitious Chinese student who came to US fresh out of China's most prestigious university - University of Beijing.  She thought it was one of best food she ever had.  She is now  a successful executive legal counsel for a major high tech company.  Occasionally,  I still receive an email from her asking for suggestion of a phở restaurant as her travel taking her to different parts of the country and the world.

I guess as far as friendship goes, phở can be the the soup that binds.