Le Phu Cuong wants to use pho to teach the world about Vietnamese culture, history and identity. Phuong Lien explains why he’s pho real
Wearing an I Love Pho T-shirt and holding an I Love Pho book, it’s clear, Le Phu Cuong loves pho – but then who doesn’t? We all know pho isn’t just a national dish but a national treasure, a symbol of Vietnam with a rich heritage that is now served all around the world and lauded by food writers such as Anthony Bourdain as the greatest soup, if not dish, in the world. But Cuong doesn’t just want to eat pho, he wants to use its popularity to help second generation Vietnamese discover more about their own rich heritage. Thanks to its popularity Cuong believes the bowl of pho may be the right tool to “stir their interest in Vietnamese history”. His first step was an art exhibition entitled I Love Pho which featured video, installation pieces and photography by Vietnamese visual artists Le Van Tai, My Le Thi, Le Thua Tien, Garry Trinh, Mai Long and Binh Truong as well as two poets, one journalist, a restaurant owner and a food writer. The pho-inspired exhibition was held earlier this year at Liverpool Regional Museum in Liverpool, Australia and aimed to create dialogues between visual artists, local communities and broader audiences in exploring issues of identity, history and Vietnamese diaspora over a bowl of pho. Cuong’s installation in the exhibition Dao Pho (Pho Way) featured a worshipping altar with pho ingredients, different kind of herbs, incense burners and a picture of I love Pho inside. Another piece Pho Along the Dusty Roads by Le Thua Tien depicted a street vendor in Hue city. “I came to realise another world, one with night workers relying on the sale of pho on the streets of Vietnam,” he has written of this picture. “If one night, there were no pho traders, what would the workers’ lives be like without a bowl of hot, nourishing pho?” If pho is going global, back home for the average man on the street it also makes the world go round. Cuong, who is the Asian-Australian Community Cultural Development Officer for Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in Liverpool, Australia, is in charge of organising cultural activities for sixteen Asian-Australian communities including Vietnamese community in South-west Sydney. Cuong admits he was inspired when he heard about Hanoi Sofitel Metropole’s executive chef Didier Corlou’s booklet and seminars on pho in Vietnam four years ago. So eventually Cuong decided to come to Vietnam to undertake research of his own. “I don’t remember how many people I met and questions I posed about pho history, recipes and various ways of consuming pho in different regions of Vietnam,” he says. The exhibition is part of an overall project Pho Goes Global which will see the publication of an Anthology of Pho with collected stories of pho by renowned Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese writers and food writers; a play called A Feast For All Senses directed by an Italian Australian Teresa Crea and a documentary film in co-operation with SBS television about a young Vietnamese-Australian’s quest to understand her past, present and future through a bowl of soup! Cuong really believes that through its own global journey, pho has become “unique, flexible and versatile in borrowing, adapting, modifying, and ultimately creating its own culinary experience”. He’s not alone. “As an emblem or symbol, a lost art or the food of global future, pho is more than mere nourishment,” says Joanna Savill, a food writer. “Like all the best dishes, it is a story in itself, a vehicle for the culture and history that produced it. To taste it and to share it, is to acknowledge that culture and history and to respect it.” Cuong claims Australian audiences admitted that although they loved to eat pho, the exhibition was the first time they discovered so much about the history and meaning of pho as well as how complex and sophisticated cooking it is. Meanwhile, Cuong is also doing his bit to teach people how to pronounce it properly – more like ‘fuh’, not ‘foe’! “Pho is a humble soup after all, basically boiled chicken or beef bones with herbs, spices and noodles thrown in,” said Ivor Indyk, the editor of Heat Magazine, a highly-respected literary magazine in Australia. “Its true significance is that it’s a dish born of poverty, suffering, trauma and exile – that’s what gives pho its power.” So it seems pho is going well down under but Cuong and his team are still working on their project Pho Goes Global and still looking for partners, sponsors and supporters with the aims of creating a Pho Museum in the future which will tour as an exhibition around Australia and the world before ending in Vietnam.
You can find out more by contacting cuong@casulapowerhouse.com
