Dee May's essay submission on travel, food and culture

“This was the first dish I made for my mother-in-law on my first day of marriage”, Ms Moon, our Vietnamese cooking instructor says with a warm yet playful smile. She clasps her hands together in front of her pastel green apron, starting her sentence, again, with a smile, the kind where the skin on the outer corners of the eyes crinkle, “I call this dish, my mother-in-law’s soup”.

In a class of 16 travellers, ranging from solo backpackers to families, I was seated at the back of the class but able to catch Ms Moon’s every culinary move from the reflection of the large mirror that hung above her head. In the cooking school on Nguyen Thai Hoc Street in Hoi An’s Old Town, we were seated classroom-style in a room with raised wooden beam ceilings, bamboo drop lamp shades, large windows which filled the room with natural sunlight and walls minimally decorated with spherical trays made from palm leaves. Laid out in front of us: dual gas stoves, a tray of twelve condiment bowls—each filled with a different type of oil, herb, paste or spice, sheets of pre-cut rectangular banana leaves, a plate of raw vegetables, wooden chopsticks, iron pots and crockery.

Over the whirr of the blades of the food processor, Ms Moon begins to explain the secret behind her mother-in-law’s soup—shrimp paste wrapped with a cabbage leaf, tied together with a spring onion shoot, simmered and served in a light broth.
“You know why Vietnamese food is so tasty?” Ms Moon asks, “Because we add a special ingredient which many foreigners do not like...monosodium glutamate—also known as MSG”, Ms Moon explains, pausing dramatically at each letter of the acronym. I look around and see a few bewildered and disapproving faces amongst my classmates. I start to have a sinking feeling about the cooking lesson that appears to encourage the use of the infamous flavour enhancer.

“During the war, we had food rationing, so many Vietnamese people use MSG in their cooking to make everything more tasty. Just a pot of water and some MSG--and you get a good soup. No need salt, meat or vegetables”. Vietnam lost a whole generation of cooks during that period and gained a reputation amongst foreigners for having MSG in their cooking, according to Ms Moon. “But now, we do not use MSG. So don’t worry. We can afford to use ingredients from the market we visited today”, Ms Moon reassures the alarmed students. “Today, we will use fresh and dried shrimp and vegetables to make my mother-in-law’s soup. No MSG!”