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What You Need to Know About Pho (Such As: Know And Pho Don’t Rhyme)

by DAVID W. BROWN

McDonald’s, I bet their ice cream machines are never broken.) Pho first arrived in the United States in the 1970s, brought by refugees from war-ravaged Vietnam. The lack of authen- tic ingredients available here at the time, together with racial and cultural discrimination and a hard financial situation for immigrants, meant the dish took years to find its footing. For decades, pho shops featured exclusively in Vietnamese commu- nities. Now, generations removed from the war, and as first- and second-generation Vietnamese American chefs are better posi- tioned economically to introduce their stunning cuisine to a wider and more appreciative clientele, pho is everywhere. And not just in major cities, like Houston, that have large populations of Vietnamese descent, but also on main streets in small towns. America seems to have figured out what it was missing all those years, and the culinary world is better for it. Though I make a mean bowl of cereal, I’m no chef, so I asked Marc Ardoin, corporate chef for Rouses Markets, what makes the dish special. He answered without a moment’s hesitation: “I

THE FIRST THING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PHO is that it is a light, exquisite Vietnamese soup. The second thing you need to know is that it is pronounced “fuh.” Only a handful of ingredients come together to make its magic: broth, a type of rice noodle called banh pho, meat and herbs. (Most menus will carry vegetarian options as well, either absent a protein or with tofu, in a vegetable broth.) Those are the basics. If chicken soup is a hearty, stoutly seasoned meal that gives you the stamina to trudge back out into the cold winter night and push your sled dogs to their limit, pho is the meal you have when you need to be refreshed, whether mentally, spiritually or physically. It revitalizes and uplifts. In taste and texture, it is the opposite of gumbo; pho is like some sprightly tea, with meat. Restaurants specializing in pho have proliferated across America in recent years the same way sushi restaurants multiplied in the ’90s: from that one place on the outskirts of town, to suddenly outnumbering McDonald’s franchises. There are three Vietnam- ese places within walking distance of my house. (And unlike

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