Vietnamese noodle soup (Phở)

Phở (Vietnamese pronunciation: [fə̃ː]  ( listen), ; often written pho in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and United States where it is typically pronounced /ˈfʌ/^[1]) is a Vietnamese noodle soup, usually served with beef (pho bo) or chicken (pho ga).^[2] The soup includes noodles made from rice and is often served with basil, lime, bean sprouts, and peppers that are added to the soup by the consumer.

The exact origin of phở is poorly known, mostly culled from oral histories.^[3] Still, the consensus among academics, diners and restaurateurs is that it originated in the North Vietnam during 20th century, and that the first phở restaurant opened in Hanoi in the 1920s.^[3][4].

The specific place of origin appears to be southwest of Hanoi in Nam Dinh province, believed to harbor both a Chinese and French connection. The noodles may come from China and French popularized the use of bones and lesser cuts of beef to make broth.^[5][3][4] Phở did not become popular in South Vietnam until the mid-1950s.^[6]

a plain Cantonese Hofan

Some observers^[3]believe phở may come from the Cantonese rice vermicelli Hofan (河粉) which are interchangeably abbreviated as either fan2^[7](粉, phấn in Tự Hán Việt) or Ho2^[8](河, Hà inTự Hán Việt ), the two sounds giving the name "phở".^[3] Both fan and pho refer to the same rice noodles found in Vietnam and Guangdong, China, suggesting that rice noodles may have been brought to Vietnam by Cantonese immigrants from the Guangdong province in the early 20th century. The noodles are cooked identically in both places, and are often seasoned using fish sauce, garnished with bean sprouts, and served with meat balls and sliced beef. Vietnamese phở, however, is further garnished with fresh mint, cilantro, basil, bean sprouts, limes, sliced chili peppers and sliced raw beef^[9]; this is especially true of Saigon-style phở. Furthermore, the broth of phở is made of beef bones and fresh onion, whereas the Cantonese broth of fan is made of dried flatfish and other seafood. In some regional varieties, the Vietnamese broth may also be a mildly sweet flavoured by Asian yellow rock sugar, but the Cantonese version is not.

In recent years, there has been also a new theory suggesting that the word phở comes from a French beef stew dish pot-au-feu^[10][11][12], however this theory is often discarded linguistically. In the Vietnamese language, the word phở carries a non-flat category, whereas most French loanwords carry a flat tone, sắc or nặng tone, depending on the end consonant except the loanwords are ended with -t, -p, -c, -ch consonants. Phở does not match this rule.^[13]

Vietnamese phở noodle soup with sliced rare beef and well done beef brisket

Possibly the earliest reference to phở in English was in the book Recipes of All Nations edited by Countess Morphy in 1935. In the book, phở is described as "an Annamese soup held in high esteem...made with beef, a veal bone, onions, a bayleaf, salt, and pepper, and a small teaspoon of nuoc-man."

With the Vietnam war and the victory of the Viet Cong, phở was brought to many countries by Vietnamese refugees fleeing Vietnam from the 1970s onwards, especially popular in large cities with substantial Vietnamese populations and enclaves such as Paris in France, the West Coast of Canada^[14], the East and West Coast of the United States, Sydney and Melbourne of Australia, and Hong Kong.

Apted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pho