Vietnamese Culture Through the Eyes of A Chef
01:30 pm, Sat, 20 Jul 2024
Ném Space
18/1 Ngô Thời Nhiệm, Võ Thị Sáu, D.3, HCMC
Registration link
From the organizer:
Join us for an exciting talk with chef Anaïs Ca Dao van Manen after our screening of ‘Little Forest’ (dir. Yim Soon-rye, 2018) and explore how we can better understand Vietnamese history, geography and culture through its widely loved dishes, their regional nuances, and how the various ethnic groups living together in Vietnam have made our food what it is today. Expect deeper dives into homestyle and streetside favorites (did you know that the snails that make up bún ốc (rice noodles with snails in a tomato broth) or ốc nhồi thịt (snails, minced pork and lemongrass stuffed inside snaill shells) have been consumed by Vietnamese people since prehistory?) and further insight into why, for example, food in the South is sweeter than in other regions. Anaïs will also walk us through her childhood of growing up between cultures, her incredible journey as a chef, and her current research for an extensive cookbook of some 400 recipes that will be published by Phaidon.
**If you would also like to attend the screening of ‘Little Forest’ (dir. Yim Soon-rye, 2018) before the talk, please register here
**Please park your motorbike in the basement garage at 16 Ngo Thoi Nhiem
***Language: English with live Vietnamese interpretation
About
Anaïs Ca Dao van Manen is a chef and consultant, whose career has taken her all over the world from London and Paris to Bogotá and Vietnam. Anaïs’ work in development – notably for Bao in London – as well as her work in social enterprise saw her picked out as an emerging talent in the Luncheon Magazine. She also publishes an informal video series with her brother on Instagram called Ăn Ngon, which showcases the diversity of Vietnamese cuisine and shines a light on lesser-known Vietnamese dishes.
This talk is part of ‘No fighting at the dinner table’, a program that looks to filmic depictions of the humble family meal where, through food and taste, gender and generational dynamics are fought and defended, conceptions of national identity disrupted, and the familial discourse shifted away from concrete and predetermined family entities towards a family always in the making. Expanding on ‘In Stranger Lands: Cocoa’s Journeys to Asia’ and its explorations of taste memories, this four-week screening program – a collaboration between Nguyen Art Foundation and Ném Space, curated by Thái Hà – uncovers how the act of sharing food reveals entangled webs of social and power relations, but also creates complicit cultural knowledge between those present at the table. In conjunction with the screenings, ‘No fighting at the dinner table’ invites viewers to a series of shared lunches, co-hosted by Hieu & Phu of Ném Space, and inspired by the recipes and flavors from Phu’s hometown Bac Giang. Eating together in a common space, the program extends the films’ gestures of care to then craft new understandings of being individuals within families within imposed and chosen social structures.
Follow updates on event’s page.
