Vietnamese cuisine — 1954, Partition

Vietnamese fish sauce; the primary salt. Street Vietnam is the cuisine. Plastic stools, pho at dawn, banh mi from a cart, bun cha at lunch. The French overlay is not a tourist add-on — the baguette is Vietnamese now. The home pantry around Nuoc mam and the labour behind Banh mi rarely fit a takeaway box.

Are restaurant versions "authentic"? Restaurant Vietnamese cuisine is one register. Home pots and market stalls are others. Authenticity is a marketing word; technique is not. Ẩm thực Việt is the local name used in this atlas beside Vietnamese cuisine. Vietnamese cuisine is a herb-and-broth system: pho in the north, bun bo Hue in the centre, hủ tiếu and sweet-savoury Mekong pots in the south. Nuoc mam is the salt; rau thom is the volume knob.

Heat is optional chili and raw pepper, not a curry paste architecture. The diner finishes the bowl with lime, sprouts and sauce — a last-metre technique. A long country whose broths, herbs and sweetness change at every latitude. Hanoi pho is clear and spare; Saigon pho is sweeter and herb-heavy. Hue still cooks imperial and spicy as if the court had not left.