Bánh Mì

The bánh mì story is one of colonization, adaptation, and reinvention. The bread itself was brought to Vietnam by the French in the late 19th century, when the baguette arrived in Saigon with the colonial administrators. The Vietnamese made it their own within a generation — lighter, crispier, often with rice flour mixed in for airier crumb. The fillings came later. By the 1950s, street vendors in Saigon were stuffing baguettes with pâté (French technique, Vietnamese offal tradition), grilled pork, pickled carrots and daikon (Chinese-Vietnamese), and cilantro. The bánh mì was born. It became the national sandwich of Vietnam in the 1960s-70s. When the Vietnamese diaspora spread to France, the US, and Australia in the 1970s-80s, the bánh mì came with them. The version most Westerners know — from places like Bánh Mì Bà Huynh in HCMC, the famed Philippe's in Los Angeles, or the countless Vietnamese bakeries in Paris — is the Saigon's version. Northern bánh mì is more austere, often just pâté and cilantro. The UNESCO World Network of UNESCO Creative Cities has recognized the bánh mì as an iconic cultural product. The dish is, in many ways, the most successful Vietnamese food export — sold in 50+ countries, recognized in 2011 by Oxford English Dictionary (which added the term with diacritics).