Vietnamese cuisine encompasses the foods and beverages originated from Vietnam. Meals feature a combination of five fundamental tastes : sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and spicy. The distinctive nature of each dish reflects one or more elements, which are also based around a five-pronged philosophy. Vietnamese recipes use ingredients like lemongrass, ginger, mint, Vietnamese mint, long coriander, Saigon cinnamon, bird's eye chili, lime, and Thai basil leaves. Traditional Vietnamese cooking has often been characterised as using fresh ingredients, not using much dairy or oil, having interesting textures, and making use of herbs and vegetables. The cuisine is also low in sugar and is almost always naturally gluten-free, as many of the dishes are rice-based instead of wheat-based, made with rice noodles, papers and flour. Vietnamese cuisine is strongly influenced not only by the cuisines of neighboring China, Cambodia and Laos, but also by French cuisine due to French colonial rule over the region from 1887 to 1954.
Tết, short for Tết Nguyên Đán, is the most important celebration in Vietnamese culture. Tết celebrates the arrival of spring based on the Vietnamese calendar and usually has the date in January or February in the Gregorian calendar.
Glutinous rice is a type of rice grown mainly in Southeast and East Asia, and the northeastern regions of South Asia, which has opaque grains, very low amylose content, and is especially sticky when cooked. It is widely consumed across Asia.
In Vietnamese cuisine, bánh mì or banh mi is a short baguette with thin, crisp crust and a soft, airy texture. It is often split lengthwise and filled with meat and savory ingredients like a submarine sandwich and served as a meal, called bánh mì thịt. Plain bánh mì is also eaten as a staple food.
The Mường are an ethnic group native to northern Vietnam. The Mường is the country's third largest of 53 minority groups, with an estimated population of 1.45 million. The Mường people inhabit a mountainous region of northern Vietnam centered in Hòa Bình Province and some districts of Phú Thọ province and Thanh Hóa Province. They speak the Mường language which is related to the Vietnamese language and the Thổ language and share ancient ethnic roots with the Vietnamese (Kinh) people.
Bánh chưng also called Chưng cake, is a traditional Vietnamese food which is made from glutinous rice, mung beans, pork and other ingredients. Its origin is told by the legend of Lang Liêu, a prince of the last king of the Sixth Hùng Dynasty, who became the successor thanks to his creation of bánh chưng and bánh giầy, which symbolized, respectively, the earth and the sky. Considered an essential element of the family altar on the occasion of Tết, the making and eating of bánh chưng during this time is a well-preserved tradition of Vietnamese people. Besides the Tết holiday, bánh chưng is also eaten all year round as Vietnamese cuisine.
In Vietnamese, the term bánh translates loosely as "cake" or "bread", but refers to a wide variety of prepared foods that can easily be eaten by hands or chopsticks. With the addition of qualifying adjectives, bánh refers to a wide variety of sweet or savory, distinct cakes, buns, pastries, sandwiches, and other food items, which may be cooked by steaming, baking, frying, deep-frying, or boiling. Foods made from wheat flour or rice flour are generally called bánh, but the term may also refer to certain varieties of noodle and fish cake dishes, such as bánh canh and bánh hỏi.
Bánh lá, literally meaning "leaf cake", is a category of bánh, or Vietnamese cakes, that consist of a parcel of a variety of rice stuffed with some fillings and wrapped in a leaf or leaves.
Bánh giầy or Giây cake is a Vietnamese traditional cake. Bánh giầy is a white, flat, and round glutinous rice cake. They are wrapped in cut pieces of banana leaves. They are usually served with a type of Vietnamese sausage giò lụa. Bánh giầy can be fried to a thin crispy golden crust or be eaten with giò lụa. Another variation is called bánh giầy đậu, where ground boiled mung bean —salted or sweetened—is stuffed inside. It is very similar to other Asian glutinous rice cakes like Japanese mochi, Korean tteok or Chinese lo mai chi.
Bánh tét is a Vietnamese savoury but sometimes sweetened cake made primarily from glutinous rice, which is rolled in a banana leaf into a thick, log-like cylindrical shape, with a mung bean and pork filling, then boiled. After cooking, the banana leaf is removed, and the cake is sliced into wheel-shaped servings.
Colona evecta is a tree species, first described by Pierre, in the genus Colona and now placed in the subfamily Grewioideae. No subspecies are listed in the Catalogue of Life.
Colona auriculata is a shrub species first described by Desfontaines, with its current name after Craib; the genus Colona is in the family Malvaceae and now placed in the subfamily Grewioideae. No subspecies are listed in the Catalogue of Life.
Garcinia celebica is an accepted name of a tree species in the family Clusiaceae. The Catalogue of Life lists no subspecies.
Phrynium pubinerve is the type species of the plant genus Phrynium, in the family Marantaceae. It is widespread throughout Asia, with records from India, China, and Indo-China through to New Guinea; no subspecies are listed in the Catalogue of Life.
Phrynium imbricatum is a species of plant in the family Marantaceae. It can be found from India through to most of Indo-China; no subspecies are listed in the Catalogue of Life.
Albizia lucida is an Asian tree species in the Acacia clade. It ranges from the western Himalayas through Indochina and southern China to Taiwan. No subspecies are listed in the Catalogue of Life. In Vietnam it may be called bản xe .
Hủ tiếu or Hủ tíu is a Sino-Vietnamese-Cambodian dish eaten in Vietnam as breakfast. It may be served either as a soup or dry with no broth.
Dracaena angustifolia is a species of Asian tropical forest under-storey plants in the family Asparagaceae; no subspecies are listed in the Catalogue of Life.
