Hi everyone,
Setting aside differences in Northern versus Southern style pho, I'd like your opinion on pho ingredients in VN compared to ingredients in the US (or maybe other western countries like Canada or Australia). I've eaten pho in many places and can't believe that pho in the US/North America is better because there are more abundant and better quality ingredients, specifically meat and bones.
I think this is an oversimplification and ignorance of the subject matter. Such notion is being spread without regards to the local market in general (different taste, different expectations), what the people actually want to eat, and the skills of the chef/cook, among others. Such judgement is based purely on the ingredient quality factor which is never the only factor contributing to what is considered good food. In my opinion it is a narrow minded opinion.
By such logic, supposedly most every "ethnic" food in the western world (North America, Europe, Australia) are better than their countries of origin. Poor people who live in Africa, Asia, South America, etc. They don't know that their foods are not any good, before we have better ingredients here, right? Wrong.
I've read proclamations like this elsewhere on the Internet and think it's just not correct. The person cooking the food has a lot to do with how good the food turns out to be.
I found good and bad pho in both VN and in US. That pretty much shoots down the theory about better ingredients.
Really love these generalizations. Not. ?
Problem is people talk in simple black and white, when it's never black and white in real life. When it comes to pho, using bones from cows in VN or US doesn't affect taste (if at all) as much as who's making the pho. These arguments about ingredients only totally disregard one of the most important factors in making good pho: the person making it.
