Cơm Trắng - Traditional Meals Of Vietnamese

Com trang - Rice has always been the main source of food in traditional Vietnamese meals from upon a day. Rice provides carbohydrate, is energy for daily activities of Vietnamese . Vietnam is one of the leading nations has exported rice in the world, so rice can be found easily in markets, grocery stores or supermarkets. Traditional Vietnamese meals include rice and other dishes. Eating together helps to enhance the taste of the meal.

Traditional Vietnamese Meal

Vietnamese daily meals contain the sweat of farmers, tears and blood of  Vietnamese soldiers who passed away for Vietnam. Therefore, when Vietnamese eats rice, they always remember  soldiers's gratitude.

Vietnamese rice became a cultural Vietnamese tradition, associated with the history of Vietnam, appeared in Vietnamese poetry and fairy tales. Vietnamese can eat western dishes, Korean food, Japanese food many times, ... but they will never give up Vietnamese rice.

Vietnamese meal is also the love of parents for their children. They work hard to earn money cover their family's life, so tired but they will not skip meals for their children.

STRUCTURE OF TRADITIONAL VIETNAMESE MEALS

There are 5 dishes in normal Vietnamese meal: rice, soup, meats, sauce and vegetables. 

Meals tray is covered to avoid flies.

Vietnamese Meal includes rice, fish, soup, vegetable and fish sauce.

Rice:

Rice is harvested from rice plant by farmers, from hitting to selling to customers. It is a long process from planting time to harvesting time. That's why each rice seed has high value .

Rice

Meats:

Meats include red meat,white meat and seafood. Red meats are pork and beef. White meat are fish and chicken . Once upon a day, Vietnamese often ate fish more than pork or beef because fish price was lower than pork or beef price. Some house has a pond in their garden. They could go fishing easily.

White meat : Fish dish is usually fried fish, fish cooked with sauce or grilled fish. The kind of fish is catfish, anabas, snake head, carp, goby ,... There are many kinds of fish in Vietnam. Depending on kind of fish, they will be cooked each different way. For example: fried catfish, goby cooked with sauce, fried anabas or anabas cooked with sauce or soup,... With chicken, it was cooked with lemon grass or ginger. It is really delicious with Vietnamese.

Red meat: pork or beef. Pork was cut to many square spices then cooked with sauce, coconut water and duck's eggs. This is also a traditional Vietnam food in Lunar new year. Moreover, there is beef cooked with mushroom, bean or pate,...

Seafood: there are squid cooked with pineapple, cucumber and cilantro; steamed shrimp; crab cooked with tamarind,...

Fried catfish

Soup:

Because cooked rice is dry, soup helps to digest foods easier. Soup has also many kinds of soup as: potato, carrot soup, vegetable soups, hot sour fish soup, ... depending on Vietnamese' hobby, features of each region in Vietnam.

Sauce and vegetable:

Sauce and fresh vegetable are often eat together with meat dishes. They help to enhance the taste of meals. Sauce is usually fish sauce or soy sauce. Fresh vegetable includes salad, tomato, cucumber, many kinds of vegetable,...

Salad, tomato and pepper

Vietnamese meal is a large variety of dishes. When you come to a Vietnamese restaurant, there is a menu with many dishes. You don't know choose which dish? I recommend you should ask the waiter which one is famous and choose it. I hope you will like it.  

They are the main dishes in traditional Vietnamese meal. Although Vietnamese will go to everywhere, they still eat traditional meal like this. Me, too. Sometimes, I often travel to many places but I always would like to eat Vietnamese food. Maybe, I love my country - Vietnam very much.

Trangie Nguyen