The use of flowers in Vietnamese cuisine

Flowers hold a very special place in Vietnamese culture symbolically, spiritually, literary and artistic but also in everyday life and in gastronomy. This certainly deserves a comment in the famous "Physiology of taste, or meditation of transcendent gastronomy" of Brillat-Savarin, the epicurean magistrate keen on cooking as well as beautiful letters.

Moreover, if you visit North West Vietnam in spring you may have the opportunity to taste the soup of bauhinia, one of the dishes constituting the basic diet of the Thai ethnic group. This soup is composed of white petals from the hoa ban flower, or bauhinia. The flowers are fried and then added to the broth. They are also cooked with salt, wild pepper, coriander, garlic and chili.

Grapefruit blossoms, which embellish the moonlit nights in late spring, serve to prepare a suave essence that will enhance the taste of sweet broth while dried flowers of frangipani, tree pagodas and temples, give an effective infusion against hypertension.

National flower, symbol of purity and spiritual aspiration in Buddhism, symbol of integrity and moral elevation in Confucianism but also a symbol of beauty, simplicity and longevity, the lotus is used in the preparation of many dishes. Indeed, everything is edible in the lotus, from the root to the fruit, through the stem, the young leaves and the flower. The mature leaves perfume the rice and the stamens of the flowers delicately embellish the tealeaves. Throughout Vietnam, the lotus is highly appreciated for its finesse, its sweet, special and delicate aroma, but also for its different textures (crunchy, floury, tender) depending on the parts used as well as for its positive properties on health. Eating for pleasure while taking care of your body is one of the basic principles of Vietnamese cuisine.

The use of banana flower is also very common. The flowers are often used in salads with chicken, ground beef and seafood. You can also find this banana flower in the bún bò Hue, a delicious beef vermicelli soup, a specialty of the city of Huê. This flower is rich in vitamin E and flavonoids, so it is a great source of antioxidants in the diet.