Banh Mi: A Vietnam Cuisine

Banh Mi was a Vietnamese sandwich. It’s a product of French Colonialism in Indochina, combining ingredients from the french (baguettes, pate and mayonnaise). By the 1950 s it was sold in its modern form by street vendors in Vietnam. After the fall of Saigon, in 1975 Vietnamese American brought Banh Mi sandwiches to cities across the United States. In regions of the United States with significant populations of Vietnamese Americans, numerous bakeries and fast food restaurants specialize in bánh mì.

“Afterwards, I was contacted by a local food and beverage company to write the full history of the banh mi. Three months later, after contacting food historians in America and national libraries in France, after dragging Vietnamese friends to banh mi shops on the other side of Saigon with the promise of a free breakfast and the hope that their translation skills may solve one more piece of the puzzle, I filed a 10,000-word treatise on Vietnam’s sandwich of record. In the time since the manifesto, my appetite for banh mi shows no signs of waning”( By Stantley).