Pho

• 1. A Missing Bowl

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  Pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup, and it is absent from Georges Dumoutier's extensive 1907 account of Vietnamese cuisine. That silence is striking. Dumoutier wrote at length about the food of the country, yet a bowl of broth, rice noodles, herbs and meat never appears in it. Within a few years the word was showing up in print, and street vendors were selling the soup at dawn and dusk. Today it is served in households, street stalls and restaurants across Vietnam. How did a dish so recent become so central? Who first cooked it, and what does its name really come from? And why does a bowl in Hanoi taste so different from one in Saigon?

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• 2. Shoulder Poles

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  Two wooden cabinets hung from a single carrying pole, and together they formed the first pho kitchen. One cabinet held a cauldron over a wood fire. The other stored noodles, spices and cookware, with room to assemble a bowl. Vendors called this rig a gánh phở. It was always carried on the shoulders of men, who kept their heads warm with distinctive felt hats called mũ phở.

  Fixed stands arrived slowly. Hanoi's first two were Cát Tường on Cầu Gỗ Street, which was Vietnamese-owned, and a Chinese-owned stand in front of the Bờ Hồ tram stop. In 1918 two more opened, on Quạt Row and Đồng Row. Around 1925 a villager from Vân Cù named Vạn opened the first Nam Định style stand in Hanoi. Between 1936 and 1946, the number of wandering peddlers fell as stationary eateries took their place.

  In the late 1920s, vendors experimented with húng lìu, sesame oil, tofu and even an extract called cà cuống, made from Lethocerus indicus. The result, known as phở cải lương, never entered the mainstream. Phở tái had been introduced by 1930. Chicken pho followed in 1939, possibly because the markets sold no beef on Mondays and Fridays.

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• 3. Village Origins

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  Between 1900 and 1907, in Nam Định Province southeast of Hanoi, the modern form of pho took shape. The province was then a substantial textile market. The dish's reputed home is the pair of villages Vân Cù and Dao Cù, also written Giao Cù, in Đông Xuân commune of Nam Trực District. Villagers in Vân Cù say they ate pho long before the French arrived.

  Beef was the obstacle. Vietnamese farmers traditionally relied on water buffaloes, so eating beef was not widespread. Demand for it appeared only under French colonial rule, which lasted from 1887 to 1954. Rural kitchens already had xáo trâu, a similar dish made with water buffalo meat, and it had long been a staple. The French also introduced pot-au-feu, a slow-cooked beef stew, and their use of beef bones for broth mirrors French consommé technique.

  The cultural historian Trịnh Quang Dũng sees several forces meeting in the early 20th century. French demand improved the supply of beef, and that left behind beef bones. Chinese workers bought the bones to make a beef noodle much like pho, called ngưu nhục phấn. Laborers from Yunnan and Guangdong wanted it most, because it resembled food from home, and it gradually spread to the wider population. The rice noodles and the broth spices also tie pho to Chinese culinary tradition.

  Pho may have evolved independently of neighboring beef noodle soups, or it may share a root with them. One example is kuay teow reua of Thailand. Whether the dish owes more to Paris or to Guangdong is still argued, and that argument runs straight through its name.

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• 4. The Name Debate

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  The word phở appears in a short story published in 1907, and in 1913 the writer Nguyễn Công Hoan recalled vendors selling it. A 1931 dictionary was the first to define it as a soup: "from the word phấn. A dish consisting of small slices of rice cake boiled with beef." Possibly the earliest English-language mention came in 1935, in Recipes of All Nations, edited by Countess Morphy. It called pho "an Annamese soup held in high esteem". The author Nguyễn Dư notes that both the origin of the word and the origin of the dish matter to Vietnamese identity.

  In 1937 Gustave Hue equated cháo phở with pot-au-feu, which literally means "pot on the fire". Western sources generally say that pho comes from pot-au-feu in both name and substance. Several scholars dispute this and point to major differences between the two dishes. In Jean Tardieu's 1928 Lettre de Hanoï à Roger Martin Du Gard, a soup vendor cries "Pho-ô!", which is offered as a sign of a separate origin. Many Hanoians have a different explanation. They say French soldiers ordered "feu", meaning fire, from the gánh phở, naming both the rising steam and the wood fire glowing in the evening.

  The food historian Erica J. Peters warns that the French have embraced pho in a way that overlooks its origin as a local improvisation. She argues that this reinforces "an idea that the French brought modern ingenuity to a traditionalist Vietnam".

  A Chinese origin has its own champions. Hue and Eugène Gouin suggested in 1957 that phở is a shortened form of lục phở, derived from ngưu nhục phấn, meaning "beef noodles". Chinese immigrants sold that dish in Hanoi, and the 1931 dictionary definition supports the link. Some scholars instead trace pho to xáo trâu, a commoners' dish from near the Red River. It was stir-fried strips of water buffalo meat served in broth over rice vermicelli.

  Around 1908-1909, the shipping industry brought a flood of laborers to Hanoi. Vietnamese and Chinese cooks set up gánh to feed them xáo trâu. Later they switched to cheap scraps of beef that butchers set aside after selling to the French, creating xáo bò. Chinese vendors advertised it with the cry "Beef and noodles!" Over time the cry became "Meat and noodles!", with the last syllable stretched out. Nguyễn Ngọc Bích suggests the final consonant was dropped because of the similar-sounding word phẩn.

  The French author Jean Marquet recorded the dish as "Yoc feu!" in his 1919 novel Du village-à-la cité. That is likely the same word the Vietnamese poet Tản Đà wrote as "nhục-phở" in his work "Đánh bạc", meaning "Gambling", composed around 1915-1917.

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• 5. Inside the Bowl

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  A pot of beef broth simmers for several hours. Into it go beef bones, oxtails, flank steak, charred onion and charred ginger. For a more intense flavor, cooks leave some beef on the bones. The spices often sit in cheesecloth so they do not float around the pot. They include clove, star anise, coriander seed, fennel, black cardamom and cinnamon, either Saigon cinnamon or another kind. Careful cooks roast the ginger and onion over an open fire for about a minute before adding them. Skimming the impurities that rise to the top is the key to a clear broth. Fish sauce goes in toward the end.

  Chicken pho uses the same spices but a broth built from chicken bones and meat. The chicken's heart, undeveloped eggs and gizzard may go in too. The charred ginger can be dropped, since its job in beef pho is to subdue the strong smell of beef.

  At a stall in Vietnam, customers are usually asked which parts of the beef they want and how it should be done. Tái chín is the default at most restaurants, a mix of medium-rare meat and pre-cooked well-done meat. Tái sống is fully rare. Tái băm is a rare patty minced with a chopping knife right before serving. Other choices include nạm gầu, which is brisket, along with gân for tendons, sách for tripe, tiết for boiled blood and bò viên for beef balls. A poached egg arrives in a separate bowl.

  Fresh rice noodles are called bánh phở tươi, and dried ones are bánh phở khô. Most pho noodles are medium-wide, though people in different regions prefer different widths.

  Northern pho is often described as subtle and light on spices, with a deep savory taste from the bones. It comes with a blanched whole green onion, diced onion, cilantro, pickled garlic, chili sauce and quẩy, a fried dough. Southern broth is sweeter and cloudier, and diners add bean sprouts, fresh sliced chili, hoisin sauce and a wider range of herbs. Central pho is different again, with pickled papaya and sate sauce on the table. Phở Nam Định uses more fish sauce in the broth and wider noodles.

  Provincial cooks swap in other meats. Phở vịt, made with duck, is a specialty of Cao Bằng and Lạng Sơn provinces. Phở trâu, made with buffalo, belongs to Nam Định and Hà Nam. Phở dê, with goat, belongs to Ninh Bình. Phở đỏ, made from red rice, comes from the highlands of Hà Giang. Many dishes called phở are not soup at all. Phở xào is sauteed with beef and vegetables, phở trộn is a salad, and lẩu phở is a hotpot. Phở khô Gia Lai, despite the name, is an unrelated noodle dish similar to hủ tiếu.

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• 6. Hard Years

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  More than a million people fled North Vietnam for the South after the partition of 1954. Pho, which the South had eaten relatively little of, suddenly became popular. Freed from northern tradition, it gained new variations in meat and broth. Phở tái began to rival fully cooked phở chín in popularity. The migrants from the North also popularized bánh mì sandwiches.

  Saigon filled with famous shops. Pasteur Street was known for its beef pho, and Hien Vuong Street for its chicken pho. At Phở Bình, American soldiers dined while agents of the National Liberation Front planned the Tết Offensive upstairs.

  In the North, private pho restaurants were nationalized and began serving noodles made from old rice. Street vendors were forced to use noodles made from imported potato flour. Officially banned as capitalism, these vendors prized portability. They carried their wares on a gánh and set out plastic stools for customers.

  During the subsidy period after the Vietnam War, state-owned eateries served a meatless version called phở không người lái, or pilotless pho. The name referred to the unmanned reconnaissance drones of the U.S. Air Force. The broth was boiled water with MSG added for taste, because meat and rice were often in short supply. Bread or cold rice came on the side. That habit lives on today in the practice of dipping quẩy into the soup.

  Pho eateries were privatized as part of Đổi Mới. Even so, many street vendors must keep a light footprint to avoid police who enforce the street tidiness rules that replaced the ban on private ownership.

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• 7. Around the World

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  In 1980, the first of hundreds of pho restaurants opened in the Little Saigon of Orange County, California. Vietnamese refugees had carried the dish abroad after the Vietnam War, and pho shops appeared in Little Saigons and Asian neighborhoods in Paris and in major cities of the United States, Canada and Australia.

  During the 1990s, as relations between the United States and Vietnam improved, pho began to enter the American mainstream. Vietnamese restaurants opened quickly in Texas and California, then spread along the Gulf Coast, the West Coast, the East Coast and the rest of the country. An unofficial estimate puts annual revenue from pho restaurants in the United States at US$500 million during the 2000s. The dish now turns up in cafeterias at many college and corporate campuses, especially on the West Coast.

  The word "pho" entered the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary in 2007. CNN Go placed pho at number 28 on its 2011 list of the World's 50 Most Delicious Foods. The Vietnamese Embassy in Mexico celebrated a Pho Day on the 3rd of April 2016, and Osaka Prefecture held a similar celebration the following day. Lao and Hmong cuisines have adopted the dish, and Australian menus sometimes spell it "Phô".

  The fall of Saigon in 1975 sent thousands of southern Vietnamese to the Filipino island of Palawan. There, a pho-like dish called chao long became popular. It combines broth, beef, pork or chicken, rice noodles, mung bean sprouts and basil, with calamansi on the side. Locals serve it with a bread like bánh mì, which they call "French bread".

  The chains grew large. Pho 24, a subsidiary of Highlands Coffee, has 60 locations in Vietnam and 20 abroad. Phở Hòa, the largest chain in the United States, operates over 70 locations in seven countries. A restaurant called Pho 75 uses a number that is lucky for its owners. Many American restaurants sell oversized helpings called "train phở", "airplane phở" or "California phở". Some have run eating challenges with prizes for finishing as much as 10 lb in one sitting, or auctioned special versions costing $5,000.

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• 8. Reinvention

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  In Hanoi, phở cuốn wraps the ingredients of pho in fresh rice noodles and eats them like a gỏi cuốn. The dish has gained popularity there. Bars such as Nê pour pho-inspired cocktails that borrow the soup's signature spices. At Anan Saigon, the Michelin-starred restaurant of the chef Peter Cung, pho is deconstructed into a multi-course meal.

  Famous addresses keep the older tradition alive. In Hanoi they include Phở Bát Đàn, Phở Thìn Bờ Hồ, Phở Thìn Lò Đúc and Phở 10 Lý Quốc Sư. In 2016 the BBC named Pho 10 Ly Quoc Su among the best pho addresses in Vietnam. Phở Thìn Lò Đúc has opened branches in Australia, Japan and the U.S. In Ho Chi Minh City, Phở 2000 received a visit from U.S. President Bill Clinton in 2000.

  The state has caught up with the street. Vietnam named the 12th of December the Day of Pho. In 2024, Hanoi and Nam Định style pho were recognized as national intangible cultural heritage. The honor circles back to the province where the modern bowl is said to have taken shape.

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