Hi, I am Krystal. And welcome to my blog!

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A little bit about me: I was born and raised in Hanoi, Vietnam but recently moved to the States to pursue a hospitality degree in education. I grew up in my mother’s kitchen, spent my whole life tasting my mother’s cooking (her flavorful Bun Thang, rich caramelized pork belly with quail eggs, and irresistible ginger beef stew), as well as surrounded myself all the time with the simple yet balanced, diverse and flavorful Vietnamese cuisine. In this blog, my mission is not only to prove that Vietnamese food is more than just pho, but also to showcase the way we combine fragrance, taste and flavor based on the five fundamental taste senses: spicy, sour, bitter, salty and sweet.

 

Our cuisine is heavily influenced by traditional Chinese medicine, which includes the Asian principle of five taste senses. Whether simple or complex, in order to compose a balanced meal that is beneficial for the body, it’s crucial to understand the “Wuxing”: wood (sour), fire (bitter), earth (sweet), metal (spicy) and water (salty). The sensing organs associated with each sense in order to send information to the brain to help us understand and perceive: food that attracts eyes, sounds that come from crisp and wholesome ingredients, spices that are detected on the tongue, aromatic smells that comes from fresh herbs and last but not the least, the feeling of the fingers perceived when touching the food. With this in mind, my love for the harmonious flavor combination in the cuisine has encouraged me to awake my five senses of satisfactions by exploring and perfecting the art of cooking Vietnamese cuisine.

 

Măm Măm Vietnam is a meaningful blog name. A major thing about Vietnamese is our complicated tone system. For example, măm măm means yum yum in English, which is often used to describe when someone genuinely enjoy their food. However, if you add an acute accent, măm becomes a completely different word with a different meaning: mắm. Mắm means fish sauce in Vietnamese, which is an incredibly pungent, fishy concentrated liquid that every Vietnamese households has to have in their kitchen pantry. In Viet Nam Culture Foundation, Trần Ngọc Thêm wrote, “For Vietnamese people, a meal without fish sauce is considered incomplete.”. A bowl of fish sauce, nước mắm, should always be placed at the heart (center) of the table so every one can reach it.

What an interesting name, right?

 

What you will find in this blog are either dishes that emotionally tied to my childhood (from easy-to-make chicken vermicelli soup to complicated 3-hour red wine beef stew), or dishes that are a must try in when you visit Vietnam (from the most well-known bun cha, to the local favorites Bun Rieu and many more). There are so many delicious recipes, from appetizers, comfort foods, feast foods, festival foods to traditional desserts for those who has a sweet tooth out there! Whether you are kitchen newbies or cooking masters, I'm so gald thet you are here. 

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Thank you for stopping by, and happy cooking!