Pho Cuon

  Finding the translation for Pho Cuon has been a top priority the last few days. I have the basics down:Pho- soup with rice noodlesPho Bo- soup with beefPho ga- soup with chickenPho Ca- Soup with FishPho Cuon- ?????Three Vietnamese dictionaries had no mention of this word, yet the area around my hotel was filled with Pho Cuon. Finally I googled the term and found this definition:Unlike the traditional noodle soup, which requires a large pot of broth to be poured over a bowl of rice noodles and sliced chicken or beef, pho cuon is made of banh pho – a thin sheet of rice paper – some beef and a handful of fresh herbs.To cook up a delicious meal of pho cuon, thinly sliced beef is stir-fried in a hot pan. The meat is then put onto a bed of herbs and rolled up in the rice paper sheet.Soup in a rice paper roll. Sounds good to me, I am ready to try it.

Orphanage Lunch

A three hour drive through rice fields in Vietnam brought us to our destination- a Catholic Orphanage. Our focus on this trip was to play with children, hold babies and  visit the orphanage director. The focus  for our new friends at the orphanage was to celebrate International Women’s Day. After at tour and a chance to play with the children, we were the honored guests at a lunch with 80 children and 30 orphanage caretakers.  The lunch was an incredible spread of traditional Vietnamese food. Stir-fried beef, shredded pork, bean sprouts, sauteed vegetables, noodle soup, rice, pork… far more than can be recalled. The delicacy of the meal was consumed first. Not by me, but by my dining companions. The plate of eggs in the far corner of the photo are not ordinary hard boiled eggs.These are fertilized duck eggs, or hot vit lon. Essentially, the fertilized duck egg is 16 to 20 days old. The older the egg, the more characteristics of a duck inside the egg: feathers, beak, bones. The younger egg will resemble an actual egg with veins. This is the type that was served at our table.  For more information on fertilized duck egg, click here for a definition or  here for a video. I skipped the eggs and enjoyed my lunch of rice, noodle soup, beef and vegetables.