A mix of background stories in pictures
During the Vietnam War, the media played an unprecedented role for the first time. The gruesome images of a war entered the living rooms via television. The photo of Kim Phuc, who fled for napalm bombs, is engraved in everyone’s memory and won the World Press Photo of the year […]
On 30 april 2015 it is 40 years ago that the Vietnam War came to an end. Vietnam has seen extreme poverty after the war, the last 25 years Vietnam is progressing since the economic reform Doi Moi (‘new life’) has been introduced in 1986. Vietnam became the 150th member […]
“Cơm cha, áo mẹ, chữ thầy. Nghĩ sao cho bõ những ngày ước ao” Thus sounded the first sentences of proverbs that I had to memorize for the Vietnamese language lessons. When I was eight, my father taught me and my older brother and sister Vietnamese. He felt that we […]
The former Tonkin (north), Annam (center) and Cochin (south) are the current Vietnam. From 1887 to 1954 Vietnam with Cambodia and Laos belonged to the French colony of Indochina. French colonization had great influence on Vietnam. World War I During World War I (1914-1918) hundreds of thousands of so-called Indo-Chinese […]
In the Netherlands the Vietnamese cuisine was introduced by the fried Vietnamese spring rolls, sold at the mobile stalls at markets, fairs and shopping malls. In the 1980s, selling Vietnamese spring rolls were for many Vietnamese in the Netherlands, a way to start a business and make money. These spring roll stalls still exist. […]
“And then there is luck, both good luck and bad luck, and as I become more and more experienced it seems that luck becomes ever more important” Henry Marsh // Engelse hersenchirurg My father had the picture above framed and placed on the altar at home. The altar is the […]
Fish sauce, nuoc mam, serves the entire Vietnamese cuisine and is sold in glass and plastic bottles. Fish sauce is considered typical Asian but the Romans and Greeks used this flavor enhancer exuberantly called garum. Garum is nothing but fish water that is extracted from salted fish. In Asian cuisine […]
“The fresh spring rolls are the glory of the Vietnamese kitchen” Johannes van Dam // Dutch culinary reviewer One of the best and tastiest inventions of Vietnamese cuisine is rice paper, made to roll Goi cuon. Goi means salad, and cuon to role or roll(s). These fresh spring, summer, salad […]
The Vietnam War ended on April 30, 1975 when the North Vietnamese conquered the capital of South Vietnam, Saigon. After the fall of Saigon more than 800,000 (South) Vietnamese fled out of the country by boat for fear of the new communistic regime, the so-called boat refugees. It is estimated […]
Every time I stand in front of that wall, the vending machine (automatic) of FEBO, life gets tough for me. Will it be a ‘frikandel‘ or maybe a ‘bamischijf‘? In 1941, Johan de Borst began his bread and bakery shop on the Amstelveenseweg in Amsterdam. ‘FEBO’ is the contraction of […]
“Giving birth is always difficult” Food documentary Ants on a shrimp One of the best restaurants in the world, Noma based in Copenhagen with its famous and charismatic chef René Redzepi, moves for a period of five weeks to Tokyo for a unique culinary experiment. Noma is known for its […]
I had not noticed the work of Chaïm Soutine before, until I visited the Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume collection at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. This museum has the largest collection of paintings by Soutine in Europe. Jewish-French Chaïm Soutine was born in 1893 in Smilowitchi (White Russia) and […]
If you’re in Spain, you’d better adapt to the Spanish rhythm fast. In summer, the heat will paralyze you, and many restaurants and stores will close in the early afternoon. You may dine late, because the restaurants won’t be open until 8.30 pm. But you get a lot in return. […]
A beautiful cover can lead to buy a book. That proves the Polpo cookbook. After purchase, I still have not cooked from this book. Staring at the cover design, however, I did many times because its beauty makes me happy. I was attracted by the curling beast between the gold […]
