From baguette sandwiches to Roman Catholic architecture, the colonial legacy is everywhere in Vietnam

A kind of indelible legacies the pandemic has bestowed upon me — in addition to the heightened sense of hysteria and a borderline pathological cleanliness OCD — is a gentle gluten intolerance. “ Anathema to an itinerant meals and journey author,” one would possibly say. An emphatic “ no large deal” is what I’m recognized to shoot that down with as of late. There’s a gluten-free different to absolutely anything edible. Sure, even good outdated beer!

However lengthy earlier than the culinary world sought out such benign alternate options to cater to us gluten-challenged souls, the Vietnamese had an ace up their sleeves for an entire different set of causes. However extra on that somewhat later.

I discover myself in Vietnam as of late. It’s one of many first locations of my ‘revenge journey’ sequence that I’ve deliberate for the subsequent couple of months. A spot with a definitive French aptitude like no different.

As one would possibly know, from 1887 till the Geneva Accord of 1954, Vietnam was a part of French ‘Indochine’, an enormous colonial stronghold which additionally included Laos and Cambodia. Even now, nearly 70 years later, it’s straightforward to seek out French influences all through the area, albeit with a number of twists.

Girls cook dinner and promote banh mi sandwiches on the streets of Ho Chi Minh Metropolis.
| Picture Credit score: Getty Photos

As an illustration, my quotidian breakfast staple is a yummy, toasted bánh mi sandwich. A mini baguette-like sandwich filled with a curious assortment of French fillings and condiments like roast pork, pork pâté, and mayonnaise that pair fantastically with sometimes Asian ones like candy chilli sauce and recent coriander fronds.

Ethereal and porous

But it surely’s the crusty baguette that places all of it into higher perspective for me. What began off as regular-sized French baguette made with de rigueur wheat flour at the start of the colonial rule morphed into the mini gluten-free Vietnamese fashion bread made utilizing rice flour (a South East Asian staple) — imparting the bread with a extra ethereal and porous texture like by no means earlier than.

There are French-style bakeries all through Vietnam, serving not simply the bánh mi in its varied permutations and mixtures, but additionally the beloved French espresso. One other shock within the in any other case tea-obsessed continent.

Additionally distinct from its different, instant South East Asian neighbours is the fashionable day Vietnamese script. This one with its base within the Roman script was promoted by the French colonial authorities after it was created by Alexandre de Rhodes, a Jesuit missionary.

The Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon is predicated architecturally on Paris’s hallowed Notre Dame.
| Picture Credit score: Wiki Commons

Faith too — and extra particularly Roman Catholic structure — is one other vestige of the French previous. With their hovering arches, opera house-like balconies and grand columns, a few of the most stunning buildings are the church buildings I discover within the nation’s capital Hanoi and its business capital Ho Chi Minh Metropolis. From the St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Hanoi to the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon, each are primarily based architecturally on Paris’s hallowed Notre Dame.

However Catholicism isn’t the one organised type of faith the Vietnamese co-opted from the French. I’m speaking about maybe the least recognized faith on the earth. One referred to as Caodaism that I probability upon as I journey south alongside this slender strip of a rustic.

Based in southern Vietnam in 1926, Caodaism is a monotheistic faith that’s a curious amalgamation of varied philosophies. With the phrase “ cao” that means “excessive” and “ dai” that means “peace”, its underpinnings are a fusion of the secular and non secular philosophies of the East and the West. Curiously, its tenets are additionally primarily based on sure codes believed to be revealed to the faith’s founder Ngo Van Chieu, who was a district head of the French administration in Vietnam, by way of a sequence of séance messages ranging from 1921.

Worshippers at a Cao Dai temple in southern Vietnam‘s Tây Ninh province, generally known as the birthplace of Caodaism.
| Picture Credit score: Getty Photos

Mentioned to have over 4.4 million practising Caodaists, it’s Vietnam’s third largest faith after Buddhism and Roman Catholicism. What’s really novel about Caodaism is that it combines parts from lots of the world’s main religions, together with Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, in addition to Jainism!

Historic personalities

One other fascinating facet of Caodaism is that amongst its pantheon of saints, historic personalities (largely French, no shock!) similar to Joan of Arc and Louis Pasteur too discover agency footing. However essentially the most outstanding and revered of all of them is Victor Hugo since he gave many teachings and in addition the textual content of quite a few essential prayers to Caodaism.

In truth, it’s stated that he even predicted that he would grow to be the prophet of a brand new faith to merge European and Asian mysticism. Philosophical foresight at its greatest, no?

The Mumbai-based author and restaurant reviewer is keen about meals, journey and luxurious, not essentially in that order.