A big hug and thank you to , , , , , and the more than 80 other folks for tuning in for the fish sauce Q&A and virtual tasting. (Your nuoc cham Viet dipping sauce recipe may never the the same again!)

As I said at the top of the session, I didn’t know who would or could attend. With everyone’s busy lives and time differences, who knows when to schedule anything anymore? And what interests you?

I plan to do more and will keep you posted. Join me for my next live video in the app. If you don’t have the app yet, here’s a handy link.

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💎 Stir-Fry your Collard Greens

Another thing I did recently that turned out better than I thought it would was stir-frying collard greens! I thought they always needed a long simmer or prolonged steam saute. Turns out, as I learned from a recipe by Ronald Hsu (the scrumptious chicken-and-rice casserole chef in Atlanta with a new Chinese American cookbook), collards work swimmingly well in stir-fries. It all depends on how you treat them.

I took Ron’s beef and collard greens stir-fry for a spin and Rory and I were sold. Springtime collards are fabulously tender. Get the stir-fried beef and collard greens recipe plus my pointers at the website.

💎 Food and Cooking in Poetic Form

Speaking of the American South, the Southern Foodways Alliance’s spring 2026 issue of Gravy is choc-a-block full of provocative poetry about what we cook and eat. If you’re an SFA member, you’ve received the recent quarterly journal. If you’re not in SFA, check out Gravy back issues here.

But right now, I’m highlighting a poem by the very talented Adrienne Su.

Coming up on Sunday are two more Viet ways to celebrate springtime asparagus. Some of you may have asparagus already and if you’re like Kate and Nate in Maine, you’re still waiting. Well, I hope last weekend’s recipes and this coming weekend’s recipes will figure into your cooking schedule sooner or later.

Hello there!

There’s a hella lot of weird stuff going on right now and I hope you are emotionally weathering it all ok. As for me, I’m still in a bit of a recovery period from a hectic four weeks of relentless work. I’ve been cheered by travel dispatches that a couple of you have sent and want to kick off today with a bit of wanderlust — primarily because the world is loving Vietnamese food in such wonderful ways.

💎 Vietnamese food in Rome and Paris

I need to get myself to Europe, where there is more Vietnamese food now than ever. It used to be just in Paris but I’ve received reports of good Viet food in the Czech Republic and Southern France. Things are changing in many ways.

From Hugh, a music teacher, vegan, and one of the volunteer recipe testers on my book projects:

I just wrapped up a ten day stint teaching in Rome and I’m here for a few days by myself. I love Italian food but needed a little break. Today I met up with a colleague who just arrived in town at a little Vietnamese stall in a market just outside the Porta Pia. It was good! When I was here about 10 years ago there was one (since closed) Vietnamese restaurant that was not particularly veg friendly. Now there are at least 3, all of which have substantial vegan options. Exciting developments!

Forrest enthusiastically emailed:

First thanks for your unflagging passion and joy of all things relating to Vietnamese cuisine. I love your blog and have many of your books and Vietnam remains at the top of my bucket list of travel destinations- Ha Long Bay! Mekong Delta! The ancient cuisine of Hue!

My girlfriend & I just returned from Paris, where I was excited to try Vietnamese offerings. The restaurant we visited offered a Bun salad topped w/ Boeuf Bourguignon (iknowrite???) but sadly they were out and the chef, along with half the city, was on vacation. (But I imagine it’d be like having Bo Kho but on a Bun instead of with a baguette to rip and dip.)

At any rate as I finished my Bun Thit Nuong and the remains of my salad, slippery noodle segments and pool of Nuoc Mam stared back at me I had the following thought- have I been doing this wrong all these years?

Are Bun eaten properly by tossing everything together in the bowl with the Nuoc Mam, or is it intended to be eaten dry, the salad ingredients gathered in the grasp of chopsticks then dipped in the Nuoc Mam a la Japanese Tsukemen dipping ramen?

Forrest’s suspicion that Boeuf Bourguinon on bun rice noodles is likely to be Bo Kho (a stew of beef and carrot with star anise and lemongrass) is 100 percent on the nose! How clever. It would work, I think. I serve bo kho atop either egg or rice noodles (use wide ones). And, there’s also this PTFS recipe for Bo Kho Bolognese . . .

And, how to eat a bún bowl? Simply dive in like a salad but with chopsticks (or form) and spoon. Dress the bowl with the nuoc cham sauce, but add dressing as you go because it ends up in the bottom of the bowl every time. Pace yourself as you work your way to the bottom of the bowl. Forrest was eating bún right all along. If you want a blueprint recipe and ideas for making bún bowls of your own, hop to my bún bowl basics lowdown.

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💎 Ever-Green Vietnamese sale

Goodness. I just noticed that my lastest cookbook (a 2024 Beard Award finalist and IACP award winner!) is selling online for less than $20 about 45% off cover price.

Signed copies are available at certain indie bookshops and Semifinalist (a Viet-owned shop owned by a PTFSer) so please support those community businesses and hardworking people, whenever and wherever possible.

Preview Ever-Green Vietnamese and get details on purchasing options here.

If you already have EGV, please leave a positive review of it on Amazon because it helps people find the book and determine if it’s right for them. Thank you, kindly!

💎 Coconut milk buying tips + 4 recipes

When I was developing recent recipes for the Viet lemongrass chicken stir-fry and the Khmer-Thai tom kha gai soup, I was using lots of coconut milk. It can be confounding to buy. In fact, the last time I was shopping for it at a Viet market, another customer and I got going in a conversation about what brand is good. Chef Pim and I talk about coconut milk a lot because it’s used so much in Thai cooking.

For those reasons, I just put together a mega article to help you shop for coconut milk — what to look for, how to scrutinize labels, and what brands are good. Check out the Coconut Milk Buying Guide 2025 and bookmark it.

If you already have a favorite coconut milk, or just want to dive in to cook up something, consider Kerala shrimp in coconut milk , Thai pork satay with coconut milk and condensed milk , red bean and coconut ice cream, and purple rice and coconut cupcakes, or coconut peanut mochi balls.

It used to be that American supermarkets mostly sold Coco Lopez for cocktail making. I’m so glad those days are over!

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Thinking about coconut milk is driving me to make a Vietnamese curry for this week’s Sunday Special. Stay tuned and check your inbox this weekend!

Earlier this week, John, a long time generous PTFS subscriber and dear friend, asked this:

You’ve seen them, haven’t you? Below are a few from my kitchen: Megachef oyster sauce, Well-Pac dashi kombu, Dragonfly fried shallots, and Assi ground kelp.

Here at PTFS, I nudge you to source and use Asian ingredients. I’ve offered you my master list of Asian ingredient superheroes plus a downloable cheat sheet (a paid subscriber exclusive).

But you may wonder: Is she telling me to put my health at risk for the sake of mapo tofu? Is the Megachef oyster sauce that many foodies adore going to kill me with lead and cadmium?

If I suggest that you to cook with these ingredients then I owe you thoughts for negotiating these product label warnings. I’ve thought about the Proposition 65 warnings and avoided writing about it because I’m not a food safety expert.

But in this dispatch, I’ll summarize what I found out this week about Proposition 65 and food. Take a read and please share your thoughts, including how you have dealt with the warning labels, especially on Asian food products.

What is Proposition 65?

Officially called the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, Proposition 65 (“Prop 65”) is a law in California. It started as a proposition and voters approved it by a 63 to 37-percent margin in November 1986.

When you see it, the warnings are advising you about “exposures to chemicals that may contribute to an individual's overall lifetime risk of cancer or risk of birth defects or other reproductive harm.” I’ve just quoted that from the California state government’s Prop 65 warning website.

You may see the warning on many things, including buildings, household appliances, backpacks, faucets, children’s jewelry, and food labels. The warning label is required when there is a “significant” level of potential risk. The warning is not required if the risk level is low.

In addition to John’s question, he sent this photo from an Japanese chain restaurant:

California state government’s Prop 65 website suggests that concerned consumers ask the business (or product producer) about what prompted the warning label.

The site has a lot of information and warnings, including 75 fact sheets on common Prop 65 chemicals, products, and places. John’s restaurant warning photo got me reading about how certain vegetables may release acrylamide during the cooking process.

The “Acrylamide Fact Sheet” recommends deep frying at 338F or below to prevent acrylamide from happening. Whoever prescribed that idea is not a cook. The document does, however, have feasible ideas like soaking raw potato slices (what about other cuts?) in water for 15 to 30 minutes to remove some of the “precursors to acrylamide formation” before frying or roasting.

All of this is very confusing, potentially scary, and brings up so many questions, especially for Asian market shoppers. In the U.S., chances are that you’ll see the warning on many Asian food products because they’re sold in California and other states. Do consumers in the other states and U.S. territories not care, or do they have immunity that we Californians don’t know about?

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Why do so many Asian imported foods have Prop 65 warnings? Are they safe to eat?

I cannot recall seeing Prop 65 warnings on imported products sold at Eataly. How about you?

This may be me, but is appears that a lot of imported food products from Asia have the Prop 65 warning. Why?

I could have looked up the position of consumer advocacy groups. But, rarely do we hear the perspective of an importer or manufacturer. So, I asked the head of a major U.S.-based importer of Asian food.

His company brings in food products sold at supermarkets and Asian grocers. The products his company sells are manufactured by others and also under his company’s own brand too. He’s got a lot of skin in the game. Because this is a sensitive and tricky issue, he requested anonymity.

His response:

There are generally three approaches in our industry. One approach is to simply label everything with Prop 65 warning and be done with it. The other is to get information from the manufacturer on specific chemicals before deciding what to label, if warranted. The trick is that there are over 800 chemicals on the state list of carcinogenic chemicals. It would be financially ruinous to test for all 800 chemicals. So we tend to test the most common chemicals and go from there. The last approach is to not test for anything and see if they get caught. The fine and settlement is considered as cost of doing business in California.

Generally speaking, because the label is everywhere, most of the consumers, if not all, have tuned it out. Prop 65 is no longer about removing the harmful chemical because you can still keep it in the environment as long as you have the label, which no longer served its purpose. Even what is on the list is problematic. Remember the acrylamide and coffee controversy?

Do you recall when coffee was deemed potentially hazardous to our health? That was so silly, especially how nowadays, moderate coffee consumption is said to be good for health. (And once again, acrylamide comes up!)

To summarize, a food producer may choose to:

1. Cover its butt and put the label on the packaging, even if it is not required.

2. Do due diligence to test rigorously for everything and swallow the costs.

3. Do partial due diligence to test for common toxic substances.

4. Wait and see. No testing, no labeling.

Why would you put a dire warning on your product if you don’t have to? His explanation:

Approach 1 is done because there is no penalty for mislabeling Prop 65 on a product that does not have carcinogenic chemicals. Thus, the incentive is to simply label everything generically and be done with it regardless of the presence or absence of carcinogenic chemicals.

This may explain why we see so many warning labels on Asian products. Manufacturers of Asian food products would rather play it safe.

We live in a litigious country and while there are many good reasons for protecting consumers’ health, there are also people who prey on food manufacturers. Again, from the food importer:

On a separate tangent for your information, in terms of enforcement, private enforcers and their attorneys tend to focus more on imported Asian products because of several factors. The importers are mostly small and midsize businesses. They don’t have the resources to drag out the lawsuits. Thus they would tend to settle as quickly as possible.

Secondly, most importers and overseas manufacturers have very low awareness of Prop 65. For the private enforcers, it’s easier to find something that can be subject to enforcement actions and thereby settlement. Private enforcers do look at this as a business, where can they easily get problematic products that can results in settlement? If I were them, that would be in my mind when I start searching for targeted products.

So this is my long winded way of telling you why the imported items tend to have more Prop65 warning labels than domestic. I don’t believe domestically produced products are cleaner, it’s just that they tend to take option 3 as their approach. One of our manufacturers has a sister company in the US. Even though they produce identical products here in the US, the US made products don’t have the warning label while the imported products have them. Go figure.

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What are “private enforcers”?

I had to look them up. According to Proposition 65 analysis by Z2Data Solution, the law has created an industry of “bounty hunters” who greatly benefit from Prop 65.

The California state government agencies do not enforce the law. They rely upon lawsuits brought on by consumer advocacy groups as well as by individuals, lawyers and law firms. From Z2Data Solution’s analysis: “Those plaintiffs—or ‘private enforcers’, as they are often called—who succeed in their lawsuits are entitled to 25% of the civil penalties assessed by the court, plus reimbursement for attorneys’ fees.” That adds up to millions of dollars and as it turns out, the majority of the penalties.

If you’re a producer of say, fried shallots in Thailand, there may be only 2 or 3 ingredients in your product, but you might as well add a Prop 65 warning on as a shield from potential legal mishaps.

What are cooks and eaters to do?

I would not totally ignore the warnings because you don’t know what exactly motivated the warning label. What you can control is your consumption. The law itself is a warning about a potential elevated risk over a lifetime. I could get hit by a car crossing the street (drivers can be reckless in Santa Cruz!), but I will still walk across the street, after looking both directions several times.

So back to John, who kicked this conversation off. Should he use the fermented black beans (dou chi) and chile bean sauce (dou ban jiang) in his mapo tofu?

I say yes, go ahead. If if you cook your own mapo tofu, do it once a month. That’s different than eating a tablespoon of each ingredient daily (why would you do that anyway?). If you want my mapo tofu recipe, it’s here, in my book Asian Tofu, and at the New York Times.

That is my rational way of interpreting and negotiating Prop 65 warnings. What about you? If you have special experiences, do share them too. We’re here to learn from one another.

Happy holidays. I hope your festivities are joyous wherever you are and however you celebrate.

If you’re going to rock the Asian food world, one topic to understand is sticky rice. It’s enjoyed in East and Southeast Asia. It’s fun food. In fact, we serve it at Viet weddings because as my mom jokes, “Sticky rice is sticky so it keeps couples together!” You can play with it, like for this Viet sticky rice holiday tribute which is naturally colored but may look better than it tastes, as is with these sorts of cutesy dishes.

Sticky rice can entertain but it can also confound.

An accomplished Vietnamese chef friend once confided that she had issues with making sticky rice. She didn’t serve it on her menu, despite her mother being the sticky rice maven of their clan. “How do you keep it soft for hours to serve a crowd?” she said.

That’s among the issues with sticky rice. You have to keep it protected or it hardens. For instance, when sticky rice is served at Thai restaurants, it may be wrapped in plastic wrap and slid into a woven basket to evoke traditional steamers used.

Viet cooks don’t use the woven steamers, and there are many ways to cook sticky rice well. I’ve been writing to you about microwaving sticky rice for holiday dressing/stuffing, as a snack with roast chicken, and as a grilled banana-y dessert.

In all my sticky rice excitement, I failed to write about the rice itself! You need a baseline understanding of the East and Southeast Asian ingredient because it’s sticky and slightly tricky.

So, in this Sunday Special article, let’s cover topics such as:

• what makes sticky rice unique (I made a table to summarize things!)

• mochi vs sticky rice

• different kind of sticky rice + how to use which kind when

• how to buy and store sticky rice

• potential sticky rice substitutes

If you have questions and suggestions, holler via comments.

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If pho noodle soup, banh mi sandwiches, and goi cuon rice paper rolls are Vietnamese gateway foods, then cà phê sữa đặc is the gateway drink. In response to last week’s post on pepper and coffee farming in Vietnam, Evvy commented: “How do you make coffee, Andrea?”   

I’ve considered many methods over the years, most of which may ruin my so-called reputation as a Viet food person. Today, I’m sharing what I do and what I’ve observed about Vietnamese coffee practices.

“So that is how you make your coffee,” my Vietnamese friend said when he saw me use a metal pour over filter. He preferred the traditional phin filter, which is emblematic of Vietnam’s cà phê (coffee) culture.  

I had a moment of imposter syndrome but then admitted to him: I don’t have time to wait for the slow drip of Vietnamese metal phin filter coffee. Those filters are unreliable. They weren’t a must-have in our home when I was growing up. My mom used a stovetop espresso maker for years before switching to a machine. 

In 2002 when I returned to Vietnam for the first time, I thought that I’d see phin filters all over the country. When I ordered coffee at an arty coffee house in Hanoi, the staff simply poured it out of a large metal pot. There was no romantic phin filter and the coffee was fine. I rarely saw the metal set up on that visit. Ditto for subsequent trips to the Motherland.  

Flash forward to 2024. In Buon Ma Thuot, the coffee capital of Vietnam, a server asked if I wanted phin or machine-made coffee. I chose cà phê máy (machine coffee) and he smiled, perhaps as a sign of relief (less work for him) or approval (hey, I’m not a stodgy purist Viet expat). He happily used the espresso machine.

At the Trung Nguyen coffee resort restaurant, we weren’t even asked to choose a brewing method. Rory’s cà phê sữa đặc (coffee and condensed milk) and my cà phê đen (black coffee) arrived quickly and unceremoniously.  

There are quirky notions about Viet coffee, such as you must brew cà phê in a proper phin filter, try stocking coffee (cà-phê vợt) brewed in net-like fabric filter and charcoal-fueled heat, or seek real weasel coffee (coffee farmer Dũng Võ Ngọc said the animals are often forced fed). While those ideas serve to frame the Vietnamese coffee experience as unique and exotic, they are not part of many people’s daily coffee reality.

It’s caffeinated hype. There are options and you can choose the best one for you.  

So, what do you need to make a good cup of Vietnamese coffee? Not much but some context and lotsa tips! Below are the following:

• A condensed history of coffee in Vietnam

• Brewing tips (method pros and cons, coffee buying tips, condensed milk brand suggestions)

• My Viet coffee formula cheat sheet!

• Recipes for classic Vietnamese coffee drinks

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Now about the Vietnamese farmer . . .

You may use estate grown, traceable, single source, fair trade products from all over the globe but how often do you get to meet the people that produce them? This past summer in Vietnam, I met the person who grows my favorite peppercorns.

The motherland exports a lot of coffee and pepper but most of it is packaged and sold without information about where it comes from. For many years, I’ve been purchasing Burlap and Barrel’s peppercorns that they clearly mark as sourced from Dak Lak, a province that pretty much defines Vietnam’s mountainous central highlands, which is synonymous with coffee cultivation. The area is under-the-radar and worth checking out, as I wrote here.

While planning our trip, I emailed Burlap and Barrel co-founder Ethan Frische about Dak Lak. He connected me with someone on the ground: Dũng Võ Ngọc, the farmer of the aforementioned peppercorns.

Dũng’s response: Come to visit my farm. I will host you and make you a cup of coffee.

I’ve hung out with and reported on farmers in the States but never in Vietnam. I enjoy Dũng’s pepper daily. He grows coffee too? Heck, yeah!

Dũng had arranged for us to be picked up at the airport by a local ride share system generically called xe đò — but it wasn’t like a car and driver were waiting with an “Andrea Nguyen” sign. We trusted his judgement and squeezed into a packed van for the journey to Krong Nang to meet Dũng and his wife Hạnh. (He reserved front row VIP seats so we could take in all the views!)

Xe đò (“seh daw”) is a thing for Viet people. In Vietnam, you call the service and negotiate pickup details. It’s affordable and reliable but the ride can take a while depending on how many stops are made (think airport shuttle services).

In California and Arizona, services like Xe Do Hoang bus company connect people between Little Saigons. Xe đò is down home Vietnamese tradition.

Once in Krong Nang, Dũng and Hạnh drove us around on their scooters. We shared a vegetarian hot pot lunch, goat pho dinner, and banh mi breakfast but mostly, we were there to see his farm.

What is small-scale farming in Vietnam like?

Dũng farms on just a few hectares (1 hectare = 2.47 acres) in what he describes as a former jungle. That said, his farm isn’t full of orderly crop rows. It’s wild looking. He makes fertilizers from food and plant waste, letting the jungle’s humid conditions create a formidable liquid for his crops. To naturally feed the soil, he plants ‘green manure’ grasses.

He’s also working to form a co-operative and educate other small-scale farmers to grow sustainably and regeneratively. Believing that by working collaboratively, they can all improve their lot in life, Dũng is thoughtfully ambitious.

A young farmer who displays gentle strength, Dũng’s smile projects joy from working his land. He’s resourceful. I sense a certain scrappy hustle.

For instance, he competed for and won an agricultural fellowship to be trained in Japan, where he improved his farming skills and English competency. He’s still shy about speaking English, so Hạnh, an English teacher, sometimes fills in but she loves to nudge him to practice his English. (I’m good with Viet-glish!)

Dũng openly answered my many questions so we had a splendid time. To offer you a deeper, more nuanced sense of modern Vietnam, here are a few high points.

Why farm regeneratively? It’s hard.

If you haven’t yet noticed, Vietnamese people tend to be hyper entrepreneurial and competitive (think multiple pho or banh mi shops on a single street block).

Dũng strives to be an activist farmer in his community because he believes in regenerative farming’s holistic approach. What’s the potential of his co-op idea? A number of farmers have joined (they range in age from young to middle age) but there are skeptics.

“The soil is being robbed of nutrients because many farmers are impatient,” Dũng said. “They want a fast return on their investments so they aggressively use chemical fertilizers and pesticides.”

Yes, they’ll get a large harvest at first, but their yield may not be high quality, he said. They’ll sell their harvest to intermediaries and make a so-so profit.

There are no fences between farms but Dũng can identify what demarcates his from his neighbor’s farm land. As we walked through dense growth, Dũng pointed to an anemic-looking pepper vine.

“It is dying and that is a shame,” he said. “If a pepper vine is treated well, it can produce for many years. It will produce clean tasting pepper that commands a higher price for the farmer, who is also doing good for the soil.”

I’ve tried Vietnam-grown pepper sold by Whole Foods and Costco and their flavor isn’t as bright as what Dũng cultivates; his regular black pepper has a floral bite and his late-harvest purple peppercorns have superb sweet fire.

Dũng also experiments with growing other crops, such as star fruit, cacao, and durian. He cultivates honey bananas (chuối mật), an unusually sweet, thin-skinned banana that he dehydrates and hopes to export some day.

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Why does Vietnam grow so much Robusta coffee?

After Brazil, Vietnam is the world’s second biggest coffee producer. About 80 percent is grown in the central highlands. Of the total coffee production in Vietnam, 95 percent is Robusta, according to Mercanta Coffee Hunters.

Robusta is often framed as low-quality coffee but is it really? And, as my friend Francis Lam, host of the Splendid Table podcast, loves to rhetorically ask: If there’s so much much Robusta around, where does it all go?

This video offers answers:

If Vietnamese business owners want to profit, why cultivate Robusta?

“Coffee requires cool and shade and Vietnam’s highlands offer that,” Dũng said. “Peppercorns provide shade under which coffee grows so they are good companion plants. The highlands’ volcanic soil is better for growing Robusta.”

Vietnam grows some Arabica and quality Robusta is on the horizon. In 2023 Starbucks headquarters in Seattle, I sampled very promising Robusta coffee from Vietnam. Unfortunately, they didn’t know when they’d have enough for the mass market.

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And there I was, in Dũng’s spacious kitchen, looking at bags of Robusta beans ready to ship to Burlap and Barrel in Brooklyn. He had recently done a coffee cupping with Blue Bottle, a big player in the third wave coffee movement.

I wouldn’t leave Dũng’s house without tasting his coffee. He grows Robusta and Arabica and offered several blends. “Which beans would you like? How would like it brewed?” he said.

Hit me with 100 percent Robusta brewed with a pour over. (I’m not a Viet phin coffee filter purist.) He weighed the beans, hand ground them, then made us a cup.

Dũng’s 100% Robusta coffee was roasted to a medium light state, which he prefers for showcasing the bean’s nuances. He admitted that most people like a darker roast. I enjoy a medium-dark roast but that aside, his coffee was smoother than other 100% Robusta that I’ve tried. It was devoid of the pencil lead flavor that I’ve encountered. I was impressed.

Are you coffee curious? I just found out that Dũng’s Robusta beans will sold by Burlap and Barrel. Keep an eye out for it!

In Vietnam’s large cities, craft coffee houses are in many hip areas, just like they are in America. Coffee culture in Vietnam is as strong as its beer culture so there’s an internal and external push for better coffee cultivation.

How to deal with politics in Vietnam?

Despite all the commerce that happens day and night in Vietnam, it is a communist country. In big cities there’s so much going on that you can easily ignore the Communist Party’s presence. However, in a small town like where Dũng and Hạnh live, the Party’s buildings occupy a fair portion of the main drag. Its banners, billboards and public announcements about loyalty to the country and Ho Chi Minh’s values seem ever present.

What is like for Dũng and Hạnh? How do they negotiate that? “We see them and understand them. We keep working hard,” Hạnh said.

Vietnam is a country where family and political contacts can determine your fate. Underdogs traditionally don’t have much of a chance to advance, but nowadays, because of international commerce and extra luck and pluck, people like Dũng have greater opportunities to get ahead.

Breakfast in Krong Nang

Before we said goodbye to Dũng, here’s how we spent the morning:

Banh mi pro tip » Eat fried egg banh mi while sitting or standing still to avoid drippy messes.

Thanks, Dũng, for sharing your community with me and Rory.

If you celebrated Mother’s Day last weekend, I hope it was full of love and hugs for the people who have one of the hardest careers ever. Thank you for all the warm responses to the post about my mom.

We’re leaving for an overseas trip this week so I’ve been rushing to finish projects. That’s why this dispatch is a little tardy.

So quick notes for your spring garden!

1. If you reside in the Seattle area, garden and are interested in growing perilla, PTFS founding member Tom Dullum has starter plants for sale. They’re very healthy and he’s become quite expert at propagating Asian herbs. Contact Tom at: tpbanchan@gmail.com 

2. If you live in the San Jose area, Asian herbs and plant starters are available at Thien Thanh, Dai Thanh and Battambang markets.

3. Don’t live in either places? My tips on sourcing Vietnamese herb plants here. 

Onward to the tofu of the week!

I’ve been talking about tofu commonly found at regular markets to get you into the soy mood. Now, let’s discuss tofu that’s tofu, but not tofu.

– yes, of the Rodale family that has pushed organic farming and natural living since the 1940s, asked to know more about TOFU SKIN. A request that was music to my soy ears.

If you’re a Trader Joe’s shopper, the store recently carried “Tofu Sheets” which was basically tofu skin. “Tofu Sheet” is confusing because there is a specific Chinese ingredient called “tofu sheet”. TJ should have hired me to help name the product!

Made in Malaysia, TJ’s tofu skin is currently unavailable.

No problem. There’s lots of tofu skin elsewhere. You just have to know what to look for and where to go.

In this post, let’s address tofu skin basics:

• What is tofu skin? (What’s up with the sheet, skin, and yuba?)

• How do you buy tofu skin?

• What to do with tofu skin?

Silky, soft and chewy, with a high protein content, tofu skin can be used in a variety of ways. It’s available fresh, dried, and frozen. It can be dropped into broth for soup, cut into noodles of sorts, employed as a dim sum wrapper, and manipulated to mimic meat. It’s high-protein and tastes nutty, fatty, and umami. You can just eat the fresh stuff as is, too!

Wait — How Can a Tofu Block be Tofu Skin?

Tofu skin is simple but not. What’s easy to understand about tofu skin is this: Tofu skin is basically the thin layer that forms on top as soy milk boils in a pan.

Think of the film of milk that forms when heating a pan of milk. The difference is that tofu skin is made on purpose, with the soy milk being heated in a wide and/or shallow pan to create more surface area for the skin to form.

After the film forms across the surface, the cook gingerly pulls up the skin — the proteins are that strong! They may use fingers like this fellow at Hodo Soy in Oakland, CA, or they may slide a thin rod under the skin to lift it up.

Tofu skin can be eaten fresh, folded, or left to dry. How the tofu skin is manipulated determines its appearance and uses.

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Tofu Skin Flavor Source

So, despite being called “tofu skin”, there’s no coagulant involved. Tofu skin is just soy milk. Its flavor is super savory and umami loaded because for soy milk to form a skin, it has to evaporate a lot.

Tofu skin represents soybean essence.

With regard to protein content, soybeans are the vegetable that’s closest to being an animal! I suppose you could think of tofu skin like jerky but texturally, fresh tofu skin is tender, rich and ethereal tasting. 

The Japanese enjoy eating nama yuba (fresh, raw tofu skin) like sushi, dipped in a bit of excellent soy sauce (my fave is the seasoned soy sauce in this post) and grated ginger, reflecting the specialness of the fresh skin. 

It takes a lot of time to make a decent portion, so it’s precious. I have instructions in Asian Tofu and guarantee that going from bean to skin is a worthy project. Plus, the dregs at the bottom of the pan are extra nutty and tasty.

If you have a tofu shop near you that makes fresh tofu skin – such as Hodo Soy in Oakland or Pheonix Bean in Chicago, see if you can get access to day-of tofu skin. Once it’s been packaged, tofu skin becomes another thing – still incredible but not worthy of sushi-like treatment!

And, on the off chance you’re in Kyoto, you can buy dried yuba souvenirs. Those are 2010 prices, by the way (3150 Yen = 20 USD in 2024).

What is tofu skin called? 

• 豆腐皮 dòu fu pí (or commonly, 腐皮 fu pí) in Mandarin

• yuba in Japanese

• đậu hũ ky in Vietnamese

I see that it’s 두부껍질 in Korean Hangul but do not know the Romanization. Help! 

So . . . if tofu skin is just soy milk, why is it called “tofu skin” and not soy milk skin?

I suspect that it’s related to the Chinese term for it — dòu fu pi (豆腐皮, bean curd skin) or the shorthand, fu pí (腐皮, curd skin). So from that, it’s understandable why the generic term is “tofu skin”. Even so, you’ll see below that the term on packages varies quite a lot.

One note here — in English nowadays, we call bean curd by its Japanese term, tofu, not its Chinese name, dòu fu. Tofu originated in China. I discussed this with author (who has an excellent newsletter about tofu in China) and neither of us know exactly how “bean curd” in America became “tofu”. But it is, despite tofu originating in China. 

Refer to tofu as dòu fu and make a Chinese speaker extra happy! But many English speakers know soy bean curd as tofu. 

Because Japanese food terms have a certain elevated status, tofu skin is often called “yuba”. Whatever term used, it refers to a wondrous tasty film of soy milk.

Where and How to Buy Tofu Skin?

Boy, Asian food terms and culture are complicated and confusing. You’re just looking for the tofu skin! Knowing the terms in Chinese will help you decipher the labels on packages. You’ll see why below.

Where to look for tofu skin? Premium US-made tofu skin like Hodo’s is sold at places like Whole Foods. I see it at Chinese and Vietnamese markets because those retailers move the most tofu skin.

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The week flew by (as usual) and despite feeling overwhelmed by my to-do list (who isn’t?), there were wonderful victories and developments, like:

• Convincing my husband that we need luggage packing cubes for an upcoming Asia trip, then actually ordering some (so many sizes, colors, and functions!).

• Reading that the 10,000 recommended daily number of steps for healthy living was likely used to sell pedometers. The number is fuzzy, as described in this JAMA article. Just get up and move! That’s the point.

• Being featured in ’s newsletter. We had a raucous podcast conversation about diets, midlife and food writing careering. Listen to it here.

• Following up on the fried tofu posts 1 and post 2, I got tofu buying tips for Hannah in the UK! I wrote Fuchsia Dunlop, Chinese food authority and author of the recently released Invitation to a Banquet, who responded:

  We don't have that much choice when it comes to tofu purveyors in the UK. I buy most of mine from Tofu King because they do various different kinds of tofu, including fresh tofu of various grades of firmness, sheets of pressed tofu and (if you can find it!) a delicious snack of fried tofu in chilli oil and spices. Kong Wah is also good: I use their fresh tofu for mapo tofu. Clean Bean does very nice artisanal, organic tofu: it's a bit firmer than I like for mapo tofu, but fresh and healthy, which is why I use it from time to time at home. I also use Taifun smoked tofu, which is really good.

And, I celebrated Ever-Green Vietnamese’s birthday. The book baby passed its 1-year-old mark! Thanks for being on board for Viet-style plant-based cooking. Here’s a fast replay of all the events.

The book came together during a time of personal loss in my family. Making and sharing the book helped me heal in many ways.

Thanks to all the folks near and far who’ve cooked up something from EGV thus far! Keep it up and share it with others. 

If you have the book and enjoy it, please take a moment to give it a positive review at Amazon. (I know. But, reader reviews are rare these days so they matter lots. My sincerest appreciation for your considerations!)

Don’t yet have the book? Learn more about Ever-Green Vietnamese (EGV) here.

Tofu is the main protein in EGV but the book isn’t a tofu book. I couldn’t tuck in all my tips and tidbits for you to masterfully cook up tofu, so here’s my chance.

Whether you’re on the free or paid tofu train, you should know three things about tofu textures, coagulants, and package weight. And it’s all on the tofu label. In fine print. Here’s how to negotiate all the info on a tofu label:

(1) Really Dial In Tofu Texture and Density

A recipe will suggest a tofu density (firm, extra-firm, etc.) but when you’re shopping, there’s nuance. You can go off-road and choose something else. Here’s why . . .

Like sizing for denim jeans and underwear, there’s no standard for tofu textures. What’s firm in one brand may be extra-firm in another. There are subtle in-between situations too. You can guesstimate a tofu block’s texture by:

• Grocery store: Korean markets tend to sell firmer tofu than Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese tofu. There are subtle tofu texture difference between cuisines. What’s labeled as “firm” tofu at a Korean market may be extra-firm tofu elsewhere. Chinese tofu firmness is between that of Korean and Japanese tofu. Japanese “regular” tofu may be firm or medium-firm tofu. Chinese “regular” tofu is mostly "medium-firm.” Viet-style tofu, mostly sold at Little Saigon markets, is akin to a chewy Chinese extra-firm tofu (see the coagulant discussion below).

• Tofu shop customers: If you buy from a small local shop, monitor who their customers are. If a Chinese-own tofu shop sells a lot to non-Asian folks who like firm tofu, the shop’s “regular” tofu may be on the firm or extra-firm side.

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• Nutrition labels: Look at the protein count in the nutrition label to understand the tofu’s density. Consider the protein count for each standard 3-ounce serving. Here are my benchmarks for buying tofu that is neither too soft nor too hard for its class:

• Plastic tub vs. vacuum sealed packaging: Any vacuum-sealed tofu will border on being super-firm. To be able to shipped in such packaging means that bean curd block better be super sturdy. It may be labeled “extra-firm” but check the protein count. Boxed tofu is always jello-like; I’d buy it for camping or emergencies because I don’t enjoy it.

  

• Best-buy date: The further out the date, the fresher the tofu.

• Season: Tofu textures vary by season, one tofu maker told me. I’ve not noticed that with big commercial brands. Perhaps in a small tofu shop? How wonderful is that? Tofu is indeed like bread baking.

Who produces America’s tofu?

One of the largest tofu makers in the United States is Pulmuone, a Korean-American company that produces Wildwood, Nasoya, Azumaya, Sansui, and Pulmuone (mostly sold at Korean and Chinese markets). I’m fairly sure “Pull-mu-one” is the private label producer of Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods tofu. They likely may make O Organic (Safeway) and Simple Truth (Kroger), as well.

I read lots of food labels. 😉

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(2) Know How Coagulants Determine Density and Texture

For decades, readers of The Book of Tofu (1975) by William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi, believed that Japanese tofu makers used nigari while Chinese tofu makers used gypsum as the coagulant. Focusing on Japanese foodways and the natural foods movement, the book was long considered the tofu reference work in America.

That cultural coagulant division held for years, with nigari (bittern, mostly magnesium chloride) perceived as being more natural. That’s likely because it looks like salt (below, left) in its dry state, which is crystalline and wet. Where does nigari come from? Basically salt ponds and the sea.

On the other hand, powdery gypsum (a natural mineral, calcium sulphate; above, right) likely looks suspect. It could be misunderstood as the gypsum employed for drywall, not the food-grade gypsum used in brewing beer and making tofu. It didn’t help that for years, the gypsum sold at Chinese markets had a slightly baby powder aroma.

I purchase food-grade gypsum online and home brewing supply shops.

Was the coagulant cultural division true? Is one better than the other?

Not according to the artisanal makers I met. Tofu makers in Japan and China picked what worked best for their customers and beans. Viet tofu shops in America favored acidic fermented whey for coagulation!

A summary of coagulant impact on tofu:

• Nigari yields relatively firm tofu because the soy milk curds tend to form faster and are smaller; tofu coagulated with too much magnesium chloride can be bitter.

• Gypsum facilitates bigger, beautiful curds. In my experience, tofu coagulated with calcium sulfate tends to be softer than tofu coagulated with nigari.

• Fermented whey often yields tofu that’s slightly chewy.

Nowadays, you may see two coagulants listed on a tofu label, like above.

When reading labels, note that nigari and gypsum are not additives for enhancing shelf life or flavor. They facilitate coagulation.

If tofu contains a coagulant called glucono delta lactone (GDL, made by fermenting glucose, a carbohydrate) — the tofu will be on the quite firm side. GDL is often combined with other coagulants. Shelf-stable boxed tofus often contains GDL.

Tofu made with only GDL tends to be jello-like; the curds aren’t open and absorptive like what you get with nigari and/or gypsum. If you like firmer tofu, experiment with one coagulate some — but not all — GDL.

3) Don’t Fret about Tofu Package Weight

Here’s something that’s bugged me for years: a 14-ounce tub of tofu often contains a 16-ounce block. A 12-ounce package of tofu may contain 14-ounces. The block weight is never less than what’s stated on the label. As a recipe developer, I’ve stressed about it BUT you don’t have to!

If a recipe needs 16-ounces of tofu and all you see are 14-ounce packages, just buy it. You’ll be fine. You likely have a pound in that tub. Use a scale to double check, if you like. Don’t let this frustrate you as it has me.

There. I’ve made my tofu peace. Hopefully, these tips will help you tackle tofu with even greater confidence.

Next week, I have something really great for you to do with silken tofu. Can’t wait to let you in on it.

Over 1,000(!) of you recently signed up after PTFS was selected as a 2024 Substack Featured Publication. Woot woot — two years in a row! You could have chosen many other incredible newsletters, but I’m stoked that you chose mine. Welcome.

We’ve been chatting about creating personal paths to better health and negotiating potential challenges to the (ugh!) 3Ms of aging: mid-life, menopause, and memory (loss). Our conversations took jabs at the Mediterranean diet and to a certain extent, the MIND diet for longevity and brain health, too.

Given that backdrop, here’s my silly acronym to capture the gist of our current discussions:

Ha. Ha. BeMINE = Better Mindful Individualized Nourishing Exploration

• Down with diet monoculture’s one-size-fits-all approach.

• We can determine our own bespoke, doable ways to feed our bodies and souls.

• Let’s be curious and flexible about building our healthy lifespans.

Which leads us to tofu — a food that nourishes many people and confounds countless others!

For the next few weeks or so, let’s focus on little bean curd. I’ll offer up foundational information, cooking tips, recipes, plus ideas for you to riff on and create your own tofu magic.

There’s much to learn from Asian tofu foodways because those cuisines have centered tofu for centuries! Why not glean from people in the know?

My aim is to help you add more tofu to your cooking rotation. It’s suppose to be good for us, though some dispute that notion. (Keep reading.)

3 Tofu FAQs

Tofu is a gentle food that has oddly generated both fear and confusion. Since writing my Asian Tofu cookbook, I’ve fielded lots of tofu queries. People typically need clarification about:

1. What tofu is

2. Whether tofu is bad for health

3. How to remove water from tofu

(1) What is tofu? Is tofu a processed food? Is tofu fermented?

Tofu is made from 3 ingredients — dried mature soybeans (not immature edamame!), water, and coagulant. With a very high protein content, soybeans are the vegetable that’s closest to being like an animal!

Tofu is prepared like cheese but the milk is rendered from rehydrated soybeans. You’re not squeezing a cow to get the milk, but rather you’re expelling the silky rich liquid from a finely ground slurry of soybeans and water.

There are many ways to make tofu. When hot soy milk is coagulated with a salt or acid, soy curds separate from clear liquid whey. The curds are transferred to and pressed in molds to make block tofu. My Asian Tofu cookbook field research led me to Tokyo where I visited a neighborhood tofu shop, the source of this photo:

Slightly different are silken tofu and tofu pudding. The curds and whey do not separate during coagulation. The hot soy milk firms up in a mold or pot.

The process involved in making tofu is a natural one. It is transformative but it’s not a laboratory food resulting from the modern industrial processed food complex. Tofu got its start about 2,000 years ago in China. It’s ancient stuff. Yes, I’ve made tofu and you can too.

How to make fresh soy milk and tofu? My recipes and video instructions are at Viet World Kitchen. Access them via this link.

People mostly eat fresh tofu (think mozzarella or ricotta) sold at supermarkets large and small, from mainstream and big box stores to health food markets and specialty grocers.

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Like cow’s cheese, tofu can be aged to make fermented tofu. The result is akin to blue cheese — creamy, salty, a bit funky and super savory. Some people eat fermented tofu with rice, porridge, or even spread on bread. I prefer to use its umami base notes to punch up dishes. In Ever-Green Vietnamese, white fermented tofu gets showcased in stir-fried leafy greens, dips, salad dressings and steamed eggs. The fermented tofu recipes in the book are among my favorites.

Red fermented tofu lends crimson color and earthy umami to Chinese roast pork, char siu, and some braises too. The red color comes from red yeast rice.

Stinky tofu is marinated in a special brine to acquire its unusual flavor and aroma. It is not left to age and become creamy. The fermentation isn’t intense. Fried and grilled stinky tofu is popular in Taiwan, where I snapped these pics with Christine Tsai, a member of my Asian Tofu posse:

Tempeh, miso, soy sauce, hoisin and the like involve fermenting soybeans — not tofu. We’ll discuss tofu skin in another dispatch. So much tofu, so little space. 😉

(2) Tofu Health Risks: Does soy feminize men? How does soy consumption affect breast cancer risks?

Like MSG, tofu has gotten a bad rap. Certain misleading anecdotal stories went viral to scare people. There is conflicting, confounding information.

For instance, in 2009, James Price reported developing enlarged breasts (“man boobs”) after drinking soy milk. Men’s Health ran the story and has since removed it from its website, with clarification here. Price gulped up 3 quarts (12 cups) of soy milk per day.

That’s a lot of soy isoflavones. Soy isoflavones are structurally similar to estrogen. Breast cancer growth is extra sensitive to estrogen. So doesn’t it seem plausible that too much soy would raise risks for breast cancer? For many years, women feared tofu.

Studies of thousands of women in China revealed that moderate consumption of soy did not raise breast cancer risks. Soy was shown to actually reduce breast cancer risk in this 2019 study based on data from 300,000 Chinese women, age 30 to 79 year old.

That wasn’t good enough.

In the menopause and midlife post comments, Elise shared her ovarian cancer experience. She also wrote of how some health providers in France agree that soy is good for women, but only if the person possesses lots of Asian DNA. Elise being half Viet didn’t qualify.

What? Turns out, there were observational studies suggesting a link between DNA and soy impact. I initially misread this 2019 study as suggesting the same. Khai thankfully corrected me!

The 2019 study of 220 women arrived at a neutral position:

[from the abstract] Soy foods may protect against breast cancer in Asian but not in Western populations. We examined if the levels of various markers of breast cancer risk and inflammation, as well as the effects of soy food consumption on these markers, differ between Asian and non-Asian premenopausal women in two soy intervention trials. . . . The current findings suggest possible ethnic differences in levels of biomarkers for breast cancer risk but little evidence that Asian women respond differently to soy foods than non-Asian women.

[from conclusions toward the end] As knowledge about the role of early life nutrition and the development of gut microbiota increases, the potential for diverse metabolic pathways of isoflavones in individuals with different ethnic backgrounds and dietary exposures may be clarified. Based on the current evidence, it appears likely that the timing of exposure is the most important determinant of beneficial health effects from soy foods.

The healthcare professional Elise interacted with may have wanted to take a conservative approach and not advise an intake of more soy foods.

I wish these studies were better written for easier interpretation.

My thoughts on these studies:

1. Let’s examine soy’s impact on non-Asian women who’ve been eating soy for a long time.

2. Why frame soy as a foreign experience? Countless people across cultures enjoy tofu, tempeh, and edamame. George Washington Carver, Henry Ford, and the blue zone-y Seventh Day Adventists were early tofu champions!

3. If Asians have been reaping the benefits from a soy-filled life, eating soy is a good long-term approach to health, right? What can be learned?

4. Cows eat plenty of soybeans. Humans eat beef. Spare some cattle by eating more soybeans. You’ll leapfrog to the front of the food chain. Ha!

5. If the Mediterranean diet includes tofu, doesn’t that mean it’s okay to regularly enjoy bean curd?

Tofu vs. Soy Protein Isolate

A final soy health note — tofu, soy milk and other tofu-adjacent foods are pretty natural. They are not the same as soy protein isolate added to supplements, protein shakes, meat substitutes, etcetera.

Soy protein isolate is a refined, concentrated form of the soybean. Your average tofu’s soy benefits basically come straight from the ground.

But soy hot dogs and burgers often contain soy protein isolate. TVP (textured vegetable protein) is sometimes made from defatted soy flour. If GMO soy is a concern, make sure the soy isolate in refined foods that you’re eating is non-GMO.

I’m not a fan of concentrated soy. I enjoy natural, genteel soy in the forms of tofu and other simple soy foods. Depending on your hormone situation — concentrated soy can throw things off.

In summary: When consumed at a moderate level, wholesome tofu can have a good or neutral impact on health. To filter conflicting and confusing information on soy, consider the kind of soy people are talking about: whole soy foods or foods made from added soy isolates or soy protein. Then consider your own health situation.

More tofu health info:

• Straight Talk about Soy - An excellent explainer from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

• The Health Effects of Soy: A Reference Guide for Professionals - A wonky digest at the Nat’l Institutes of Health.

• Soy Isoflavones - Get molecular with the Linus Pauling Institute.

Enough of the science! You’re here because you want more tofu in your repertoire. Onwards with a tofu prep basic.

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(3) How to get water out of tofu? Do you need a press? What about freezing tofu?

Many cooks think they need to press tofu before using it. Firstly, you don’t have to buy a vice-like press. I don’t own one. I’ve never seen a tofu press in any Asian home kitchen.

Hannah Che, the award-winning author of The Vegan Chinese Kitchen, tells cooks to just forget tofu press contraptions. While attending culinary school in China, she naively asked a teacher if he used a tofu press.

“He looked at me like I was crazy. Why would you want to press the water out?” she said when I chatted with her about tofu for a 2023 New York Times tofu story.

Why such a reaction? Tofu’s innate beauty is partly due to its water content. Tender tofu is moist and luscious, like perfect mozzarella. Sometimes you want that texture and sometimes you don’t.

If your tofu prep ALWAYS eliminates as much water as possible, your beancurd will be very firm and your dishes will be monochromatic. Your tofu life will be limited.

Tofu is multidimensional. It varies in firmness and moisture level. For instance, Chinese-style pressed tofu is a bit chewy, super firm, and dry-ish. You don’t need water to store it. It can be sliced as a nibble or added to dishes. It’s one type of tofu in a vast bean curd world.

Here’s smoked pressed tofu in Chengdu, China:

What about freezing tofu?

Though freezing tofu is popular, I’m not keen on it because:

• Freezing tofu can turn lovely tofu into a chewy, soulless sponge.

• Moist, tender tofu has richness. When it’s fried, there’s a remarkable contrast between the crisp exterior and soft interior.

• There are faster, better methods to remove surface moisture from tofu.

• Tofu is a convenient, ready-to-eat protein. Spending time to freeze, then thaw tofu for a simple dish runs counter to tofu’s natural wondrousness.

When do I freeze tofu? When I have an opened container of tofu in the fridge and need to preserve it.

I may also freeze tofu for one of my favorite food writers, Eric Kim. He recently reported on freezing and sheet-pan roasting tofu to a crisp. He checked in with me for his New York Times story and recipe (accessible via my gift links to you).

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Fast tofu water removal tips

A good tofu recipe should include info for dealing with moisture. When you’re winging it, you can:

• Cut the tofu, soak or briefly poach it in salted water, then drain. Enjoy the tofu dressed with basil and garlic or make mapo tofu, for instance.

• Microwave cut or uncut tofu to release water. (Put it in a shallow bowl.)

• Let cut tofu sit on a clean non-terry dishtowel for at least 10 minutes or just let it be for hours! (If you use paper towels, you’ll need a triple layer.)

• Break tofu into chunks and squeeze in muslin cloth for a dumpling filling, tofu “egg” salad, tofu lasagna or mapo tofu meat sauce.

There many other tofu tips but I’ll pause here.

By now you may have tofu brains (dòu fu nǎo is shorthand for tofu pudding in northern China). If you have tofu questions or feedback, let me know!

May the bean curd be with you.

My kitchen is embarrassingly packed with ingredients but I basically reach for the same ones on a day-to-day basis. When I develop recipes or write cookbooks, I’m sensitive to the fact that no one wants to hunt down an ingredient simply for one recipe. What a waste of time, money, and kitchen storage space!

We want multi-use superhero ingredients that are workhorses. Who has space for all the condiments on these shelves?

Below are roughly 40 ingredients that I most often use to cook with. The list may seem boring and some items are universal — which is the point. To craft beautiful, exciting food from a set of familiar, accessible ingredients is a cook’s dream.

Links below go to a buying guide for that ingredient.

Condiments, Oils, and Wine

1. Fish sauce

2. Soy sauce

3. Oyster sauce

4. Shaoxing rice wine

5. Maggi Seasoning Sauce or Bragg Liquid Aminos

6. Hoisin sauce

7. Sichuan fermented chile bean sauce/paste (doubanjiang)

8. Vinegar (apple cider, unseasoned rice, distilled white, Chinkiang)

9. Hot Sauce (chile-garlic sauce, Thai sriracha, or Viet chile sauce) 

10. Neutral oil (canola, peanut, sunflower, or grapeseed)

11. Toasted sesame oil

Dried Vegetables

1. Shiitake

2. Seaweed (kombu, wakame, nori)

Fresh Produce

1. Ginger

2. Yellow onion

3. Green onion

4. Shallot

5. “C” veggies: Carrot, celery, cabbage and any other choi (Brassica) family members 

6. Cilantro

7. Lemongrass

8. Chile: Jalapeno or Fresno, Thai or serrano

9. Lettuce (soft leaf kind)

10. Limes

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Canned

1. Coconut milk (full-fat)

Rice and Noodles

1. Rice (jasmine)

2. Rice paper 

3. Flat rice noodles (aka bánh phở, Chantaboon/Jantaboon rice sticks, pad Thai noodles) 

4. Glass noodles (miến, saifun, bean threads) 

5. Maifun (bún, rice vermicelli, rice sticks) 

6. Rice flour (stone-ground white or brown, Thai regular)

   
   

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Salt and Spices

1. Fine sea salt

2. Black pepper

3. Chinese five-spice

4. Madras-style curry powder

5. Red chile pepper flakes

6. Sichuan peppercorn

7. Flavor enhancer: MSG or Asian mushroom seasoning granules

Other Essentials

1. Tofu (firm, extra-firm, super-firm)

2. Mayonnaise

3. Butter

4. Eggs

5. Miso (white)

6. Cornstarch

7. Sugar

8. All-purpose flour

Asian Ingredient Cheat Sheet

Because it can be darn confusing to decipher labels and choose ingredients, I created a 2-page downloadable PDF for you to keep on your phone or print out. It contains my brand suggestions plus other helpful shopping tips.

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I shared Hanna Che’s recipe to motivate you to practice using MSG. It’s simple, low commitment and revelatory. However, getting a handle on MSG means more than following recipe instructions. There’s the added problem that there just aren’t many recipes calling for MSG. (Someone should connect me with Ina Garten to further the flavor enhancing campaign!) What if you want to free-style and use MSG and MSG-less Asian Mushroom Seasoning Granules (AMSG)?

The MSG Deep Dive part 2 offers MSG dosage tips but that can be hard to calculate on the fly. Give all that, for this last installment of the MSG mini series, I’m suggesting a simple workaround — making an MSG salt to use like regular salt. MSG is strangely mysterious so sliding it into what you already do in your kitchen may foster greater understanding and seamless, easier dosage. If you adopt MSG salt for the long haul, it may lower overall sodium intake, too.

Let’s get into it.

I didn’t invent MSG salt. About ten years ago, my friend, Yun Ho, FedEx’d a care package of Korean pantry items from Seoul. Among the ingredients was a package of mat-soh-geum (맛소금), a mixture of salt and MSG. Yun Ho said that the “seasoned salt” was a staple in many Korean households. “Use it just like regular salt,” Yun Ho wrote. It wasn’t impactful in my dishes so I didn’t use it much. (One estimate of mat-soh-geum places it at 9 parts salt to 1 part MSG.)

This past May, restaurateur and chef Dennis Ngo introduced me to a “compound salt” mixture that includes MSG. I stayed with him and his wife when I was book touring in New York. They let me have free reign of their kitchen. I used his special salt a few times when we cooked at home, but admittedly, didn’t quite understand it. My food tasted a little meh.

After I returned home, I emailed Dennis about his special salt formula. Then, I came up with my own formulas and test drove them for my everyday cooking.

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When you’ve got a moment, let’s focus on MSG and its Asian flavor enhancing kin. That’s right. There are other options for amplifying flavor! Dive in and share your insights and experiences.

Monosodium glutamate (MSG) has existed for well over a century. It started out in Japan and then spread throughout Asia before going overseas. I’ll limit my discussions to Viet (and a smidgen of Chinese) foodways because I know them well.

MSG has been used in Vietnam for many years, and my mom says that Viet cooks were using the magic seasoning even before she was born in 1934. The government rationed the crystalline seasoning during food shortages. In the late 1970s, our family knew Viet expatriates who mailed MSG to struggling family members in Vietnam so they would have a precious item to sell or trade. MSG was currency.

We don’t have an MSG shortage in 2023, but nevertheless, my mother keeps a huge canister of Ac’cent in her cupboard. She slowly doles it out by refilling a small Mc Cormick(!) recycled spice jar. Note how she keeps a tiny tasting spoon for stealthily boosting flavor. Her food never tastes like MSG. It just tastes good.

What is MSG called in Vietnamese?

Get this — in Vietnam, a smallish country, MSG goes by three regional names:

• bột ngọt (southern)

• vị tinh (central)

• mì chính (northern)

3 Ways to say MSG in Vietnamese

Why so many terms for one ingredient? We’re into MSG and self-determination! People love to be non-conformists. Of those three terms, bột ngọt is the one I grew up with. My parents are from northern and central Vietnam but ended up in Saigon to start their family. Viet people I meet mostly know MSG as bột ngọt. It literally means sweet powder, which seems appropriate because MSG imparts a nuanced, savory sweetness to food.

The other two regional terms — vị tinh and mì chính, are based upon Vietnamese pronunciations of the Chinese characters for MSG: 味 精 (taste + excellent/perfect/energy). In English those characters are often translated as “gourmet powder”. Chinese pronunciation of the characters vary by dialect, for example: wèijīng in Mandarin, mei zing in Cantonese, and vei jing in Jin. (You can detect the connection between the latter two Chinese terms with the central and northern Vietnamese terms for MSG.)

MSG vs MSG-Less Flavor Enhancers

Now here’s where things get more interesting. All this talk about MSG makes you think that MSG is the only game in town. In Vietnamese, MSG belongs to a bigger category of flavor enhancers (hạt nêm) that includes MSG-less seasoning granules.

Let’s first talk about three MSG options. I’ve mentioned Ac’cent sold at supermarkets, sometimes with a snazzier container than the canister shown here.

At Asian markets, you’ll find brands such as the ones in the photo below. Look at how Ajinomoto is clearly labeled as MSG. On the other hand, its Chinese rival is Ve-Tsin, a classic brand that isn’t clearly labeled as monosodium glutamate, but rather presented as “gourmet powder”, the Chinese term discussed earlier.

What’s the difference between Ajinomoto, Ac’cent, and Ve-Tsin? They are all MSG. Ajinomoto and Ac’cent are the same, but Ajinomoto is widely sold at Asian markets. Ac’cent is sold at mainstream supermarkets (don’t go looking for it at Whole Foods; head to a Kroger, Publix, or the like). Ajinomoto and Ac’cent have the same crystalline texture and can be used interchangeably.

Ve-Tsin is not so widely distributed. I purchased the charming tin at a Chinese market in North Carolina (it is sold online too). Ve-Tsin is finely textured like starch or powdered sugar. Comparing weight, Ve-Tsin weighs less than Ajinomoto or Ac’cent, which means 1/2 teaspoon of Ve-Tsin equals 1/4 teaspoon of Ajinomoto or Ac’cent.

Most English-language recipes call for MSG that’s crystalline because that’s the standard form. If you use Chinese Ve-Tsin (or a similarly powdery MSG), double the amount or use a scant double of what’s called for in the recipe. Think of powdery MSG as being like the Diamond Crystal Kosher salt (you double DCKS for fine sea salt) when doing the conversion:

roughly x2 powdery MSG = x1 crystalline MSG

What are Good MSG-less Substitutes?

Asian cooks like to zhuzh up dishes with flavor enhancers and over the years, there have been many MSG alternatives sold at Asian markets. If MSG is not for you, shop for Asian mushroom seasoning granules (AMSG). The beige seasoning granules are not the same as “umami mushroom powder” sold at Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and other mainstream retailers. Those mushroom powders are made from ground up mushroom and spices. They are great for certain preparations but lack the oomph of AMSG, which is formulated to yield results like regular MSG.

Note that in Ever-Green Vietnamese, I use “Asian mushroom seasoning granules” to deter cooks from using mushroom powder. Leading brands include Po Lo Ku and Imperial Taste mushroom seasoning. The typical packaging is mylar-like. I’ve also included the ingredients list. The fact that the label includes Chinese, English, and Vietnamese speaks volumes to their target market. AMSG is sold at most Chinese and Vietnamese markets as well as online. I’ve seen Po Lo Ku made in Taiwan and Singapore; both are good products but I don’t understand the location differences.

What’s the difference between MSG and Asian mushroom seasoning granules? Both amplify the flavors of food, but the beige ASMG granules cloud liquids and, depending on their taste, may overwhelm with mushroomy flavor (see the buying guide below). The granules do not dissolve as easily as MSG so you can’t simply sprinkle some onto a dish to finish the flavor. If you want to do that, pound AMSG or grind it up and keep it in a jar. You may use less because the powder is finer than the granules.

Crystalline MSG doesn’t cloud broths and plays well with other ingredients without taking over. I keep several flavor enhancers on hand but use MSG the most. What’s your preferred flavor enhancer?

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How to Use MSG and Asian Mushroom Seasoning Granules?

A flavor enhancer is not a flavor replacer. It commingles with other ingredients well but it also has unique flavor properties of its own and can take over when overused. To build umami, I use MSG (or AMSG) along with salt, sugar, and other seasonings. Flavor-enhanced food ideally tastes fabulous but still like itself.

Because of weight differences, apply a 1-to-2 volume ratio of MSG to AMSG.

A teaspoon of flavor enhancer, whether MSG or AMSG, has a saltier hit than a teaspoon of salt. When experimenting, decrease the normal salt amount by about one-third and make up the difference by gradually adding MSG and tasting along the way. 

Where to Shop for MSG?

For Ac’cent, peruse the spice section of mainstream grocers. It’s typically found on a mid-to-lower shelf. There is usually only one slot for it so I’ve often missed it.

For Asian brands of MSG, such as Ajinomoto brand, head to an East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Vietnamese) market or a pan-Asian or international market. Ajinomoto has production facilities in the United States. The product labels say “product of U.S.A.”

Suggested brands recap:

MSG brands: Ac’cent and Ajinomoto are widely distributed at markets and online. While available online, Ve-Tsin is too much of an outlier because it’s not widely distributed and not the standard called for in many recipes.

Mushroom seasoning brands: Imperial Taste, Kinoko Yugo Fusion, Po Lo Ku (all sold at Asian markets and online). Kinoko Yugo Fusion has a strong shiitake flavor whereas Imperial Taste and Po Lo Ku are more neutral. When shopping for seasoning granules check the label carefully because some contain MSG.

Wait — What’s Up with Chicken and Mushroom Bouillon Powder?

Yup, they’re used in Asian kitchens as a flavor booster too. Sold at Asian markets, these products contain MSG. They’re great for when you need a little broth for say, a stir-fry or light soup. When a recipe calls for chicken or vegetable broth, you could try one of these. Or, try Better than Bouillon.

Some Asian recipes call for chicken bouillon powder as a seasoning. If that’s the case, you’re looking for a product like Lee Kum Kee’s. Bouillon powders function like a flavor enhancer because they’re loaded with glutamic acid.

One More Thing — What about Nutritional Yeast?

I keep nutritional yeast (nooch) in my kitchen but compared to MSG and AMSG, it has a lightweight impact. Nutritional yeast is much cloudier than AMSG. And, when too much nooch is added to a dish, the yeasty flakes can become sticky and alter the texture of a dish. I have used nutritional yeast in The Pho Cookbook but for easy and flavor, MSG and AMSG are the better, most flexible ways to go.

Next up, recipes for you to play with! If you haven’t get some MSG or Asian mushroom seasoning granules (AMSG).

Hello there! We’ve had some great conversations this week about our summer gardening projects, and I’ll continue with that discussion next week in the “shortie” dispatch.

For June’s longer deep-dive posts, let’s focus on monosodium glutamate (MSG) because not all of you are gardeners but we’re all curious cooks! This first MSG dispatch covers basic information. As I progress, I’ll miss stuff. Flag things and ask questions in comments. We can learn from one another.

But before MSG, my upcoming Ever-Green Vietnamese events include:

• Santa Cruz, 6/13, Bookshop SC, taste + talk

• Virtual, Cherry Bombesquad Meetup, demo + talk with Kerry Diamond (members only)

• Los Angeles, 6/21, Phenakite, solstice cooking + dinner with Minh Phan

• Los Angeles, 6/22, Now Serving, talk with Jessie Nicely

• SF, 6/29, The Ruby, EGV Cookbook Club potluck

Five years ago, I would have shied away from writing about MSG. So many people were ready to pounce on the flavor enhancer for being harmful to health and well being. MSG has sadly had a bad reputation.

Invented in 1908 in Japan, the crystalline seasoning became synonymous with the Chinese restaurant syndrome since 1968, when Dr. Robert Ho Man Kwok from the National Biomedical Research Foundation wrote his fateful letter to The New England Journal of Medicine. In truth, the terms mislead: MSG is in many beloved processed foods like Doritos and Top Ramen, not just Chinese food. More importantly, scientific research spanning from the 1970s to today shows no definite link between MSG and reported symptoms, such as heart palpitations, headaches, and sweating. Yes, a small number of people have short-term reactions to MSG but they are mild. And, yes, if you eat a large amount of MSG on an empty stomach, you’ll feel some side effects. But how often will that happen?

The term Chinese restaurant syndrome is racially offensive because it heaps negativity on one cuisine and the people who serve it up; the MSG scare has led some Chinese restaurants to state “we use no MSG” on their menus. Given all that, in medical discussions, Chinese restaurant syndrome has been replaced by the gentler, if not convoluted MSG symptom complex. That wonky phrase frames MSG on more nuanced, neutral terms that are not culturally loaded, blameful or shameful.

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MSG for Flavor

In the main, fear of MSG has been replaced by curiosity. What was once seen as a culprit is now seen as a potential friend. Popular chefs such as David Chang and Rodney Scott have praised MSG in their cookbooks and elsewhere. A few months back, I polled PTSF readers and many of you were neutral, open, or already using MSG.

Why did I start using MSG in my recipes? For most of my culinary life, my savory dishes, made with fish sauce and animal proteins, were terrific without enhancements. However, while working on my plant-based cookbook, Ever-Green Vietnamese, I sometimes got into a veggie-centric bind. I needed an ingredient to finesse the flavors that I expect in Vietnamese cooking. If adding additional salt only made the dish harshly salty, I reached for a flavor enhancer. BAM! A subtle, extra-wonderful đậm đà (boldly savory) taste appeared. I don’t call for MSG and flavor enhancers in every EGV recipe, but rather, I use it when it’s pivotal. By writing and cooking from the book, I’ve gotten comfier with using flavor enhancers and reach for one more often.

About Ever-Green Vietnamese

My support of the notorious MSG was cited in pre-release press. Funnily, a PR company representing a major MSG producer emailed this:

MSG for Health

Recently, there’s also been a louder call for using MSG to help people lower their sodium intake. An Atlantic article (paywalled so here’s a summary) got lots of people thinking after it cited the World Health Organization’s March 2023 call for everyone to reduce sodium intake, and the Food and Drug Administration’s consideration of letting flavor enhancers like MSG be used as a salt substitute.

The solution to lowering sodium intake isn’t to simply tell people to eat less salt (it’s hard to do that for the long term!), but to determine and incorporate decent swaps. MSG is a viable partial substitute for substitute.

Why MSG? MSG has about a third of the sodium as table salt, yet it has an equal if not greater power to boost the flavor in food. It’s salty and savory. Once MSG enters the body, it breaks down into glutamate which interacts with our taste buds and sends out pleasurable signals to certain parts of our brains so that as a result, we perceive savory, tasty, umami extra yumminess. That’s my simplified explanation and there are much more thorough descriptions, like this one.

A 2017 study presented by the National Institutes of Health, concluded:

Considering the available data in the scientific literature, in addition to the information provided by the flavor enhancer industry, we could verify the use of umami substances as a strategy to reduce sodium in different foodstuffs (processed and homemade foods) without affecting the perception of saltiness and, therefore, contributing to the wellness and safety of the population. Many applications evaluated showed promising results, especially in those products with elevated sodium contents such as processed meat.

Despite concerns about the toxicity potential of MSG raised by some studies, regulatory agencies have demonstrated the safety of use of this food additive through toxicity assessments and randomized double blind, placebo‐controlled studies.

Combing through such articles, I realized that few (if any) of them discuss how to buy MSG and how to use it. Most articles treat MSG as an ingredient for processed food manufacturers to deal with so that they can cut back on sodium and keep making and selling “healthier” convenience food and snacks.

My take is this: If you’re going to consume MSG for flavor and/or health, don’t outsource it. Take control of it by cooking with it. You’ll understand how MSG works. You can use MSG at a low to moderate level. That’s empowerment in the kitchen and life.

Share Pass the Fish Sauce

Original and Modern MSG

In the early part of the twentieth century, Japanese biochemist Kikunae Ikeda asked his wife what made her preparation of yu dofu (tofu simmered in dashi broth, an iconic classic) so wonderful tasting? She pointed to kombu (dried kelp). Ikeda set out to isolate the molecular source and in 1908, dialed things down to glutamic acid. Glutamic acid is a nonessential amino acid produced by human bodies that is also naturally present in many food ingredients.

From there, Ikeda coined the term umami (based on umai, which means “delicious” in Japanese) and also found a way to extract MSG from vegetables (initially wheat and then soybeans). He patented his process, called his product Ajinomoto (“essence of flavor”), and co-founded the eponymous company that’s now a global MSG powerhouse and producer of other umami-rich food products.

What we know as MSG is concentrated, commercially-made glutamic acid, which, when dissolved in food, adds savory deliciousness. Our bodies do not identify MSG’s glutamic acid as being different from its natural kin. 

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, modern MSG is made by fermenting certain starchy or sweet vegetables. Ajinomoto describes the process as being akin to making vinegar, wine, or yoghurt. This graphic from Ajinomoto roughly conveys how fermentation concentrates the presence of glutamic acid.

Yes, MSG is vegan, plant-based, and gluten-free! It’s made from vegetables such as cassava (aka tapioca and manioc), corn, sugarcane, and sugar beets.

Identifying MSG and Glutamate in Food

Glutamic acid is present in many foods. Sometimes, it’s naturally occurring, and other times, it’s added as MSG. You may not know that you’re already eating it in some favorite foods or using it in a go-to ingredient.

To identify it, don’t just look for monosodium glutamate but also keep an eye out for ingredients with naturally high levels of glutamic acid, such as hydrolyzed vegetable protein, autolyzed yeast, hydrolyzed yeast, yeast extract, soy extracts, and protein isolate; they are often used to boost flavor. Many foods — such as tomato, cheese, mushroom, meat, fish sauce, miso, and soy sauce — contain high levels of glutamic acid. That’s why they’re so beloved.

Look around your pantry and in your fridge. What contains MSG or naturally occurring glutamic acid?

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As you consider how present glutamic acid is in your life, know that on a daily basis, adults consume about 13 grams of naturally occurring glutamates in food plus .55 grams via added MSG. MSG and glutamic acid should be understood, not feared or obfuscated.

Next time, I’ll offer a buying guide to MSG and MSG-less flavor enhancers. Meantime, if you have a question or insight, please leave a comment.

Hello friend!

Mushrooms are not just fungi, they're fun, they're au courant. Who says? The culture observers did and do. I've been spotting mushroom t-shirts, posters and other artwork. A food photographer recently published a gorgeous cookbook on mushrooms! When we shot the photos for Ever-Green Vietnamese, I made sure to have a compelling photo of mushrooms. 

That said, cooks often have questions about shiitake mushrooms – how to buy them, if fresh is an ok substitute and how to rehydrate them well. I recently went to a food event and one of the dishes served feature a lot of poorly rehydrated shiitake mushrooms. They were hard and chewy, though they looked good. My friend asked me why, I responded that they just were not well rehydrated. Pondering that incident, I got to work on soaking, chopping, writing and videoing a new blog post on how to buy, soak, and prep dried shiitake mushrooms. (The article is an update on what I've written in the past. I hope you find it useful. If I didn't cover something, let me know!)

Getting Ready for Thanksgiving 

We're going to have an early Thanksgiving with my Mom this year. On her menu is a family favorite – chao boi, a special seafood porridge with shrimp, crab, and chicken. Mom's been making the porridge for decades and we never tire of it. I recently shared a recipe for chao boi in the November issue of Food and Wine magazine. If you don't get the publication, my chao (porridge) recipe is online, along with stories and recipes from four other families that celebrate the holiday in somewhat unconventional, non-traditional ways. The feature article includes Hawaiian celebrations involving ginger-ponzu salmon poke, a Mexican family's vegan posole rojo, an Indigenous chef's roasted sweet potato and maple chile crisp, and a Korean American author's absolutely delicious cheesy scallion sourdough bread dressing. 

I never thought I'd get to write about Thanksgiving because my family's celebration is far from being a picture perfect ideal. I doubt that my parents knew who Norman Rockwell was. Our dressing was sticky rice, not a bready affair. When Food and Wine asked me to write about non-traditional Thanksgivings, I was oddly expert in the subject. If you check out the recipe links I included above, do read the stories too. The excellent dishes are as important as the human stories attached to them.

For dessert options, F&W has lots of pie recipes too. But in your planning, do review Genevieve Ko's nine Thanksgiving pie recipes at the New York Times. They are spectacular and there's a custard pie inspired by Cantonese dan tat (egg tart). 

In the Bay Area, the San Francisco Chronicle culture and restaurant critic Soleil Ho recently wrote about a Viet bakery that makes beautiful laminate dough (puff pastry) for its meat-filled banh pate so. California Bakery is on the west side of town and you can get donuts and banh mi but I'd go for the pate so. And if you want the Bay Area's round up of bakeries, the paper has you covered with this listing of the best bakeries. 

A Recap and Some Encouraging Ideas

Here are few Viet World Kitchen posts for your consideration:

• Shiitake Guide: How to buy, soak and prep the 'shrooms

  I loaded this new post with tips to help you make the most of the super umami ingredient.

• Rich Vegetarian Sticky Rice Dressing
  I could eat the dressing on its own. 

• Roast Chicken with Curry Leaf
  Who needs turkey? Use different herbs (thyme, lime leaf, etc.) if curry leaf isn't handy.

• How to Spatchcock (Butterfly) a Chicken or Turkey

  Yes, it involves practicing CPR, of sorts.

Hope those ideas seed tasty ideas in your kitchen!