Some of this season’s most exciting new cookbooks highlight the food of Vietnamese American chefs, whether it’s with the inflection of New Orleans, the impact of Oakland, or the influence of translating Vietnamese cuisine to an online audience via TikTok.
It’s perhaps easier than ever to cook Vietnamese food at home: While it “once require[d] a trip to an Asian market,” that is no longer the case, as Andrea Nguyen wrote for the Washington Post in 2019: Thanks to demographic changes and growing curiosity from younger cooks, staples like fish sauce, rice paper, and lemongrass are just all-purpose staples now.
This new ilk of cookbooks relishes this relative familiarity of Vietnamese cuisine and flavors in the United States today, and the potential it opens up for exploring personal stories and family history. Together, they tell the story of a diaspora that’s changing but forever paying homage to its roots.
Nini Nguyen with Sarah Zorn
Knopf, out now
“Đặc biệt,” chef Nini Nguyen explains, means something special, distinctive, fancy, or — for the younger Vietnamese generation — extra. Accordingly, Đặc Biệt, Nguyen’s debut cookbook, is bold, colorful, and party-ready; many of its photos suggest a boisterous family gathering just out of frame. Its recipes prioritize deliciousness over simplicity, and true to the book’s title, Nguyen recommends ways to make a dish đặc biệt whenever possible. Should you choose, you can top mực nhồi thịt, stuffed squid, with caviar; add extra lump crab meat to the meatball mixture for bún riêu; or wrap chả giò in net-like rice wrappers instead of standard egg roll wrappers.
Of course, Nguyen also offers straightforward recipes for staples like phở ga and bún bò huế, some of which don’t call for any additional đặc biệt upgrades. There is no shortage of flavor here, even with quick dishes like tôm rim me, shrimp caramelized with tamarind. But the specificity of Nguyen’s perspective — she was born and raised in New Orleans — is clearest in recipes like her Southeast Asian jambalaya (where lemongrass replaces celery in the trinity), her Viet Cajun seafood boil, and her sticky fried shrimp bánh mì, a Vietnamese bánh mì made through the lens of a New Orleans po boy. About that last recipe, in which fried shrimp are breaded in cornmeal and then drizzled with fish sauce caramel, Nguyen writes, “it’s a true hybrid, like me.”
Dac Biet is varied in its proteins (as with the following cookbooks, vegetarians might prefer something like Andrea Nguyen’s Ever-Green Vietnamese), but seafood earns special affection. Vietnamese workers make up a significant portion of the Gulf Coast’s seafood industry; Nguyen’s own grandmother shucked oysters, while her dad and his family were fishermen. “It is hard to buy seafood in America that has not been touched by Vietnamese hands,” Nguyen writes. In this way and others — such as an aside, along with photos, honoring the Vietnamese influence on the nail industry, and the presence of bottles of Cognac and Vietnamese newspapers styled around the dishes — Đặc Biệt is a vibrant, loving celebration of the Vietnamese community of the American South.
Tu David Phu and Soleil Ho
4 Color Books, September 10
Having escaped Vietnam in their early twenties, chef Tu David Phu’s parents landed in another coastal region: the Bay Area. There, Phu’s father, like his ancestors, worked as a fisherman, while Phu’s mother, who came from a family of fish sauce makers, worked in sweatshops. Memory and its preservation guide Phu’s debut cookbook, co-written with Soleil Ho. Phu explains in the introduction that, when he was growing up, his family’s history in Vietnam was one of “gaping nothingness: a series of silent head shakes, pursed lips, and changed subjects.” That is, until Phu began talking to his parents about food: “The kitchen was the safest place for me to ask, ‘I remember this flavor; can you tell me more?’”
Phu organizes his recipes by theme: There’s a chapter for seafood recipes from Phú Quoc, the island near Cambodia where his parents met; another for dishes that exemplify, to him, diasporic resilience (cá kho, or fish jerky, for example); another for dishes that represent Phu’s personal journey (“lobster boba” — a nod to the Asian American Millennial obsession). Phu’s recipes are guided by an immigrant approach to sustainability. This means sometimes relying on less-common ingredients and cuts, like tuna bloodline or de-filleted salmon carcasses, or learning how to break down your own fish. But his recipes offer great variety, encompassing both homey dishes like stir-fried bitter melon and eggs and more bougie projects like sawed-off egg shells stuffed with chawanmushi.
On the page, the partnership between Phu and Ho — who, in their former role as San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic, was known for using restaurant reviews to question broader systems of power — yields compelling results. The Memory of Taste is perhaps the richest read of these three books, full of storytelling that could stand its own even if there were no recipes anchoring it. Phu reflects on war and famine because, he writes, “if you’re gonna talk about Vietnamese food and culture, you have to talk about the suffering, too.” But to Phu and Ho, telling these stories and preserving these flavors is of utmost importance, a reassurance that “whatever comes, humanity will find a way to survive — and we’ll find pleasure and comfort wherever and however we can.”
Tuệ Nguyen
Simon Element, September 17
Tuệ Nguyen, better known as @twaydabae, has made it her goal to educate viewers about Vietnamese food and culture through TikTok, where she’s sometimes lovingly referred to as “big sis.” Di An, her debut cookbook, extends this goal past the confines of social media, taking an approach that targets less experienced cooks and those who aren’t very familiar with Vietnamese cuisine. “You’ll find simplified recipes that still pack the bold flavors that encompass the essence of the Vietnamese dishes I know and love,” Nguyen writes. “I believe in accessibility, in the knowledge that anyone and everyone can learn how to cook.”
Existing fans of Nguyen’s are the most obvious audience for her book. One chapter features Nguyen’s internet-famous recipes, like the unexpectedly viral fried rice that kicked off her current career; another highlights the food Nguyen has served at pop-ups, like chicken tenders with tamarind glaze. But Di An provides a streamlined explanation of Nguyen’s life: She emigrated to the United States at eight, went to culinary school instead of becoming a nurse as her parents wished, and made it big on TikTok without expecting to. Still, even readers without existing familiarity will be pulled in by recipes like Nguyen’s Vietnamese coffee creme brulee and fish sauce wings. Di An balances its more effortful recipes (bò kho “birria” tacos) with plenty of anytime dishes (a surprisingly quick honey-glazed shrimp). With mostly simple ingredients and lots of easy recipes, Di An feels well-suited for the random weeknight dinner, so long as your pantry is well-stocked.
Di An is a cookbook that speaks to the changing food culture. It’s one in which interest in a cuisine can be built broadly and suddenly via videos on a For You page, and one that gives individual cooks more power than ever to directly educate viewers and build an audience, even without the assistance of traditional media. Nguyen has already proven that a lot of people want to learn about Vietnamese food from her; with Di An, she’s making her mark in the establishment.
