ABSTRACT
Vietnam has been a meeting point for many different cultures—the Chinese, Indian, Portuguese, and French all left their marks on Vietnam’s native Lac Viets, who populated the area around Hanoi from ca. 2000 B.C.E., and who explain their genesis as the union between the Sea God, Lac Long Quan, and the mountain goddess, Au Co. With each wave of invaders/immigrants came different foods and culinary skills that mingled with indigenous tastes to produce the current state of Vietnamese cuisine, with its sophistic ated combination of colors, flavors, textures, and temperatures.
