num_pages: 256
description: The once-obscure cuisine of Vietnam is today a favorite for many people from East to West. Adapted and modified over thousands of years it is probably best known as a particularly delicious result of combining traditional southeast Asian cookery with visible outside influencesnotably the crunchy baguettefrom its French-occupied past. Drawing on archeological evidence oral and written histories and wide-ranging research Vu Hong Lien tells the complex and surprising history of food in Vietnam. Rice and Baguette traces the prehistoric Vits progress from hunter-gathers of mollusks and small animals to sophisticated agriculturalists. The book follows them as they developed new tools and practices to perfect the growing of their crops until rice became a crucial commoditywhich then irrevocably changed their diet lifestyle and social structure. Along the way the author shows how Vit cuisine was dramatically influenced by French colonial cookery and products which introduced a whole new set of ingredients and techniques into Vietnam. Beautifully illustrated throughout and peppered with fascinating historical tales Rice and Baguette reveals the long journey that Vietnamese food has traveled to become the much-loved cuisine that it is today. 
language: English
title: Rice and Baguette: A History of Food in Vietnam
publisher: Reaktion Books