Special Feature: Products Sally Recommends

Vietnamese Cuisine Cookbooks

by Nancy Freeman

introduction  |  sources  |  restaurants  |  cookbooks


Books in Print lists only nine Vietnamese cookbooks. Compare that to the list of 31 books on Thai food and you can understand why you may have trouble finding them at your local bookstore. Partially filling the void, some of the books on broader South-East Asian cuisine include respectable chapters on Vietnam.

The Best of Vietnamese and Thai Cooking:
Favorite Recipes from Lemon Grass Restaurant and Cafes

by Mai Pham

Beautifully designed and highly personal, this book provides information about the basics and a wide range of unintimidating recipes. The book mixes authentic recipes with reverse fusion cuisine -- Asian chef incorporates western techniques into her classic style instead of the other way round. Upon leafing through, I immediately dug in and started cooking.

The Classic Cuisine of Vietnam
by Bach Ngo and Gloria Zimmerman
The authors provide lists of necessary ingredients and kitchen equipment, explain the differences between the three different regional cuisines and the culinary techniques used in Vietnamese cooking before launching into 150 delicious sounding recipes from all over the country.

Cuisines of Southeast Asia
by Gwenda L. Hyman

Although this book includes recipes, it is principally a book about food as opposed to a cookbook. More than half of it is text devoted to history, geography, culture and cuisine. A fascinating book for those interested in the relationships between food and broader society.

The Foods of Vietnam
by Nicole Routhier

This gorgeous hardbound book won awards from both the IACP and the James Beard Society. Almost every page is bedecked with a sprig of cilantro or a bit of ginger in additional to the glorious color photos. An introduction describing food and culture precedes 150+ recipes.

Living and Cooking Vietnamese: An American Woman's Experience
by Paula Tran

A modest and highly personal account, this book tells the author's tale of moving in with a Vietnamese family while recording her mother-in-law's recipes. Approximately one-fourth to one-third is text, while the remaining consists of relatively simple recipes.

The Noodle Shop Cookbook
by Jackie Passmore

Although this book surveys noodle recipes from seven different Asian countries, the 16-page section on Vietnam is a helpful entr�e into the world of Vietnamese cooking since, as the author says, "Perhaps no one in the world eats as many noodles as the Vietnamese."

Southeast Asia Cookbook
by Ruth Law

This book surveying the cuisines of Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, The Philippines and Vietnam is the one cookbook anyone interested in South-East Asian food really must have. Lengthy introductions to each chapter describe the nature and origin of ingredients followed by detailed recipes, 300 of them.

More cookbooks can be found in our
Food-Related Book Review Section


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