Only in America: The rise of Viet-Cajun cuisine

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For 250 years, the key ingredient in American culture has been immigration, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the kitchen, which is where you’ll find Trong Nguyen most days. Nguyen came from Vietnam as a teenager in the 1980s, and discovered something interesting: The flavors that he grew up with paired perfectly with, of all things, Cajun food.

It’s called “Viet-Cajun” cuisine, and it’s something that could only happen in America: The clean, bright flavors of Vietnamese food, combined with the earthy, smoky spice of Cajun cuisine. “We try to marry the two cultures together,” said Nguyen, “because Cajun style, you have a little sour, very salty, and spicy. But on Viet style, on Vietnamese, everybody love to eat fresh.”

This version of what’s sometimes called fusion cuisine has become wildly popular in Houston, with hundreds of restaurants serving it, including at Nguyen’s Crawfish & Noodles.

Francis Lam, host of public radio’s The Splendid Table, says the story of new fusion foods is as old as the nation itself.

“Really, unless you’re talking about true indigenous food – like the food of the native peoples, or arguably you’re talking about the food of Africans who were brought here against their will – then every other form of food in America is the result of something that came from somewhere else, took root here, mixed and mingled with what else was here, and that’s what created our cuisine.”

But it’s been a long journey to get here. Back in the 1980s, the wave of post-war Vietnamese refugees was often anything but welcome. In 1981, the Ku Klux Klan even burned a fishing boat that they had titled the USS Viet Cong.

Nguyen said, “The people reject you at the beginning, because they don’t understand who you are. But when the Americans accept you, they accept you with the heart.”

Cajun food itself was a fusion of French, Native American, West African, French and Spanish cuisines.

America is often described as a melting pot, but Francis Lam uses a different food analogy: “I always think it’s more like a mixed salad,” he said. “It’s all these ingredients and they’re all together, but you can still see their individuality. But the whole thing is a unified whole.”

Or maybe a salad roll, if you’re eating Viet-Cajun food.

     
For more info:

• Crawfish & Noodles, Houston
• Chef Trong Nguyen on Instagram
• Francis Lam, host, “The Splendid Table” (American Public Media)

     
Story produced by Anthony Laudato. Editor: Steven Tyler.