Is It Bánh Mì Or Bahn Mi?

Vietnam is a country located in Southeast Asia and has been the victim of several colonial conquests by world powers. Since bánh mì is a result of French colonialism, this section will provide a simplified (perhaps over-simplified) history of the French occupation in Vietnam, which drastically transformed Vietnamese food. In his book Rice and Baguette: A History of Food in Vietnam, Hong Lien Vu (2016) dives into both the societal and culinary results of French colonialism from 1859 to 1954, almost a century. 

French involvement in Vietnam started, as most conquests do, with an intent to economically expand. They sent military forces to Vietnam in 1859 “to secure better treatment for French and Spanish Catholic missionaries and trading rights at a number of Vietnamese ports” (Vu, 2016, p. 108). This escalated into a desire to make Vietnam a French colony, which was accomplished by attacking Saigon, a prominent city in Vietnam, in 1874 (p. 109). After South Vietnam fell to the French, the French continued their brutal barrage into the North. 10 years later, in 1884, the French seized the North too, naming it “L’Union Indochinoise” (p. 110). French occupation in Vietnam lasted through World War 2 and Vietnam War, and the French finally left in 1954 (p. 151).

The Vietnamese were severely mistreated throughout this era, suffering through exploitation and famine (Vu, 2016, p. 141). Alejandro Colas’s discussion of the Columbian Exchange in his book Food, Politics, and Society: Social Theory and the Modern Food System identifies a term that can be applied to the effects of any colonial conquest: “creative destruction”, coined by economist Joseph Schumpeter (Colas, 2018, p. 42). Colas discussed creative destruction in the context of the Columbian Exchange, asserting that the trade of goods and people both radically transformed ways of life, societal structures, politics, and natural environments, while “simultaneously transplanting and reconfiguring new ones often adapting and adopting aspects of preceding systems” (p. 42). In the case of Vietnam, French occupation of Vietnam encapsulated creative destruction. Bánh mì, a sandwich that Vietnamese people eat with pride, was a result of French occupation and culinary influence, a fact that is often overlooked. 

When reflecting about the origins of bánh mì, I am left wondering if the sandwich would have still been created if the French did not go as far as they did in taking over Vietnam for a century. If they had kept their trading ports but did not attack the city of Saigon, would French baguettes have made it over to Vietnam? Would French traders have started small French-Vietnamese communities and blended the cultures? Would bánh mì be as popular as it is today? In other words, could the “creativity” happen without the “destruction”? 

Leaving Vietnam

How did bánh mì get from the humble street stalls in Vietnam to the United States? The answer is Vietnamese refugees. In the 1970s, as the Vietnam war ravaged Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees escaped Vietnam by boat and sought refuge all around the world. The Vietnamese diaspora was concentrated in a few California cities, notedly in San Jose (Lam, 2015, p. 67). The new immigrants found work in “high-tech assembly lines” and needed an affordable, quick, and familiar food source (p. 67). In 1980, Lê Văn Bá opened the first banh mi food truck, feeding banh mi to his fellow immigrants in addition to non-Vietnamese workers and college students (p. 67). 

Hundreds of Vietnamese immigrants followed suit, hoping to create a new life for themselves while honoring their home country and traditional food. I now see how the presence of banh mi shops kept the Vietnamese community closely-knit. They were recovering from  poverty and trauma from Vietnam, trying to survive in a completely new place. Food offered that sense of security and belonging and could be shared among all Vietnamese immigrants. 

American Modernization

As cuisines make their way around the world, they are bound to adapt to local preferences. Glocalization of Subway in India: How a US Giant Has Adapted in the Asian Subcontinent by Demi Simi and Jonathan Matusitz explores this pattern in the context of Subway. They define glocalization as “the process by which differences in local cultures emerge from sharing a commonality with one or more global cultures” (Simi & Matusitz, 2017, p. 574). 

In order for a global fast food chain like Subway to survive in countries other than America, its origin, Subway had to adapt to local cultures and “un-American-ize” their brand, change their menu offerings, and even use different colors in their advertising (Simi & Matusitz, 2017, pp. 576-580). As a supporter of local businesses, I am wary of how glocalization has been used by large corporations like McDonald’s and Subway to out-compete mom-and-pop owned restaurants. With Subways and McDonald’s overrunning global markets for fast food, the world is one step closer to homogenization, stripping ethnic communities of diversity. 

In contrast, the worldwide spread of bánh mì was not through a large corporation. Bánh mì shops were originally opened by Vietnamese immigrants to cater to the palates of the Vietnamese community (Lam, 2015, p. 67). But as non-Vietnamese people started to try bánh mì, shop owners adapted to local tastes and food trends. “Building on Layers of Tradition”, a NY Times article by Julia Moskin (2009), investigates the cross-cultural influences on bánh mì that have been seen in the last few decades. According to an interview with Julie Luong, a Vietnamese-American, kids in New Orleans, which had a Vietnamese diasporic community, “would buy a po’ boy baguette, pull out the inside, put on liverwurst and Creole sausage and Miracle Whip” (Moskin, 2009). 

A quote from the creator of the “pho bánh mì” stood out to me: “I could never get away with this in San Jose” (Moskin, 2009). San Jose takes pride in its authentic bánh mì. Learning about all the different ways bánh mì has been customized begs the questions: 

• How much customization is “allowed” in the world of bánh mì? What features of a bánh mì are non-negotiable? 

• Is it wrong to call something bánh mì when it extremely diverges from the traditional definition? If it’s well-meaning, is it disrespectful? 

These questions have no right answer. I would infer that Vietnamese-Americans who grew up in places like San Jose or Orange County would have different answers than those who grew up in places like New York or New Orleans. Our opinions are a product of our environments, and since I grew up in a strictly Vietnamese environment, my answers are more on the conservative side. I would say that one can only call a sandwich bánh mì if it has a traditional Vietnamese baguette and is stuffed with the non-negotiable toppings of pickled daikon and carrot, Vietnamese mayo, and cilantro. Protein fillings and the presence of paté are more of a gray area for me. But most importantly, if a restaurant or recipe is claiming that they have banh mi, they must take the time to spell it correctly. I frown upon incorrect spellings of bánh mì on American menus and social media, which inspired the name of this paper.