Pho Bo Soup Recipe

Today there is no dish that is more associated with vietnamese cuisine than ph, even though the dish's 120-year-old history is a mere blip in the timeline of vietnam's 4, 900-year civilization. Its exact origins are still uncertain but everyone agrees it originated from the north, in or near hanoi, as an evolution of xo tru, a noodle soup made with water buffalo meat. Due to french colonization around the 1900s, the demand for beef grew as french officials wanted dishes from back home (at that time in vietnam, cows were seen only as draft animals, the way we see horses today). The bones and unwanted scraps from the french beef were purchased by xo tru vendors and used in place of water buffalo, and thus ph was born. After the geneva agreement of 1954 which created two vietnams: a north and south, almost a million northerners migrated south, bringing ph along with them. Because the southerners have more of a sweet tooth and an abundance of herbs, they added rock sugar, coriander and fennel seeds to the broth; they served the meal with an abundance of thai basil, culantro, beansprouts, hoisin and chili sauce (all marked as optional below). The dish was once again transformed. And in 1975 when the north reunited itself with the south, there was a large exodus of southern vietnamese. Many of them settled in the u. S. , france, australia, etc. And opened up their own restaurants serving southern-style ph. Knowing the history of ph takes away much of the intimidation and pressure to make the dish "Authentically. " It's a relatively modern dish that in its short history has already undergone massive transformation. The ph someone's mom makes will not taste like the ph someone else's mom makes because of upbringing, individual tastes, geographic availability of ingredients, etc. The most important thing is that ph comforts you, and if what you made does that, then you did it "Right. "If the cook time is intimidating, know that most of it is inactive and all the prep can be done while waiting for the next step. So, see this as a chance to take a nap or binge a show.