Nghe An eel soup in the journey to find the cultural value of Vietnamese cuisine

Nghe An eel soup is honored

With the desire to practically contribute to bringing Vietnamese culinary culture to a new level in a sustainable way, in June 2022, the Vietnam Culinary Culture and Association (VCCA) implemented the project "Building and developing Vietnamese culinary culture into a national brand, period 2022-2024". After 6 months of implementation, VCCA collected data on 421 culinary dishes from the Department of Tourism, Department of Culture and Sports, Culinary Culture Associations of the 3 regions of the North, Central and South with the participation of more than 30 culinary and cultural experts, screening 165 dishes that passed the preliminary round.

Many typical dishes of provinces and cities have been honored to contribute to building national brands. Photo: Ho Quynh Yen

The representative of the Organizing Committee said that the selected dishes closely followed 3 criteria: Having cultural and historical value of the cuisine formed and developed in certain geographical regions; Having special value in terms of quality (nutrition, safety, sensory), production technology, processing, preservation and circulation; Having economic value, with the ability to develop in the community.

The expert council chaired by Professor Le Duan - Vice President and General Secretary of the Vietnam Association of Food Science and Technology, together with culinary experts, culturalists, and historical researchers, discussed and agreed to select 121 typical Vietnamese culinary dishes for 2022 (selected from 421 typical dishes of provinces and cities). Of which, there are 47 Northern dishes, 37 Central dishes and 37 Southern dishes. Some of the honored dishes include Can Duoc traditional fresh sausage, crab rice cake, au tau porridge, crab cakes, Thai ethnic grilled fish, Vong village green rice flakes... In particular, Nghe An eel soup was also selected to be included in this list.

Chef Bao Nguyen (Vinh City) introduces Nghe An eel soup to a French diner. Photo: Ho Quynh Yen

Present at the program, after enjoying Nghe An eel soup prepared on the spot by chef Bao Nguyen (Vinh City), Mr. Chau Nguyen - a chef from Hanoi, said: “Eel soup has the right taste of Nghe An. I have eaten a lot, at the old lady's restaurant near Vinh market. I am also a chef, I really like to find unique dishes from different regions. Coming to Vinh without eating eel is a shortcoming. I really like eel soup, Vietnamese eel is already delicious, but Nghe An eel has a distinct difference. It is sweeter and if a person is sophisticated and eats a lot of eel, they will discover that”.

According to Mr. Nguyen Quoc Ky - Chairman of the Vietnam Culinary Culture Association, Vietnamese people and Vietnamese personality are inseparable from cultural values. Over the years, we have approached it, lived with it, accompanied it and today we realize that we need to honor it. "Saying that, it does not mean that in the past we have been indifferent, but we have never organized to search for, preserve, promote and develop the cultural values ​​of Vietnamese cuisine, bringing it to a new level of value, creating a brand for Vietnamese cuisine, our Vietnamese culinary culture in the competitive environment domestically and internationally", Mr. Ky said.

According to Mr. Nguyen Quoc Ky, this is a process that requires patience and perseverance; requiring those who implement it to try their best not to miss anything. “VCCA decided to organize a program to search for typical culinary cultural values ​​of Vietnam, thereby forming a typical culinary culture of Vietnam as well as building the quintessence of Vietnamese cuisine, rebuilding data for future generations, creating data so that we can turn it from heritage value into asset value,” said Mr. Ky.

Making Vietnamese cuisine a national brand

Mr. Le Tan - Vice President of the Vietnam Culinary Culture Association said that VCCA has found over 3,700 dishes through scientific seminars and researchers and scholars. In the future, these dishes will be gradually digitized to bring to the public, so that future generations can understand the value of Vietnamese culinary culture.

“Our journey is rooted in the culinary values ​​of Vietnam, from the origins of the Vietnamese people thousands of years ago. And this process takes place because VCCA has a vision, mission and direction. Our responsibility and mission is to search for, restore, promote and develop. At the same time, through that, to preserve, leading to a result that we will at least have a set of statistics of typical regional dishes of Vietnam”, Mr. Le Tan expressed.

Diners enjoy the eel soup prepared on-site by chef Bao Nguyen (Vinh City). Photo: Ho Quynh Yen

According to Mr. Le Tan, this search journey is based on 4 criteria: history, value chain from farming to dining table, human value (researchers, scientists, processors, artisans) and finally the spread to elevate Vietnamese culinary culture. “We have surveyed 60/63 provinces and cities and this time we are searching based on the principle of typical culinary values. That means in each province, each locality, we will search to introduce typical dishes of that locality. For example, talking about buffalo jerky is the Northwest, shrimp cake is Hanoi, pho xua is Nam Dinh, cu do candy is Ha Tinh, eel is Nghe An, beef noodle soup with pig's feet is Hue…”, Mr. Le Tan shared.

It is a fact that due to geography and migration, there are many overlapping dishes between localities. “In reality, many places have five-color sticky rice, perch sticky rice, vermicelli or glass noodles… We will choose the characteristics based on the oldest historical value. Just vermicelli, we have beef vermicelli, fish vermicelli, squid vermicelli, La Vong fish cake vermicelli, bamboo shoot vermicelli, meatball vermicelli… But the journey of vermicelli is over 450 years ago, vermicelli originated from the capital to Hue, but the vermicelli with the oldest value is determined to be Hue. Talking about vermicelli is talking about Hue. Of course, we will choose gradually. And in this journey of searching, there will be times of overlap, but I think that our statistics and digitization in the future, as well as the museum, will bring a true value, with the resonance of the community, researchers, scientists, artisans of the regions, including sports culture… In this journey, I think the responsibility belongs to no one person alone,” said the representative of the Organizing Committee.

It is known that in the next phase of the project, VCCA will continue to complete the database of Vietnamese culinary culture with the goal of finding 1,000 typical dishes according to the above criteria in 2023. This data will be used to complete the "Vietnamese Culinary Map" in 2024, moving towards building a "Vietnamese Culinary Museum" in the direction of 3D virtual reality and a real Culinary Museum to serve domestic and foreign tourists in the future, contributing to making Vietnamese cuisine a national brand.