In the traditional meal of old Vietnamese, there are three main foods: rice – vegetable – fish. Rice is on the top of meal structure: “People live on rice, fishes live on water”. Vietnamese plants two types of rice: glutinous rice and plain rice. Plain rice is used in daily meal. Vietnamese also considered rice plant to be the beauty standard: “beautiful as a rice plant”. Vietnamese not only take use of rice to cook plain rice but also to make vermicelli, sticky rice, and cakes.
The second part of Vietnamese meal is vegetables. Being a country in a tropical land with the main economic section of agriculture, therefore, vegetables are very popular. Typical vegetable are salted vegetable or egg-plant. There are also herbs like onion, ginger, chilli, etc.
The third part of Vietnamese meal is fish. East border of Vietnamese land is sea, moreover, there are systems of rivers and canals therefore, fishes are used in meal also prove the abilities in taking advantage of nature. Fish is ranked third in meal and first in the water products (apart from shrimp, crab, etc). Vietnamese also takes advantage of fish to create some sauces with the famous brands of: Nghe An, Phan Thiet, Phu Quoc.
Apart from the above three parts in the meal, meat is also important. Meat could be used with the above structure and could replaced for the Vietnamese meal. Vietnamese people often use pork, duck, chicken, beef, buffalo, etc…
