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Vietnam Travel  > Travel Special Features  > Vietnamese specialities  > Vegetarian Banquet

Vegetarian Banquet

More and more Vietnamese are discovering that vegetarian food is not just for monks. The country's vastly creative vegetarian dishes have a long history of careful preparation, and are worth exploring for both meat-eaters and veggies alike.

Contrary to its reputation, vegetarian food is neither poor in category nor bland in flavor. Ms Diem, owner of "Nang Tam" restaurant, hidden in a silent alley off Tran Hung Dao Street, proves this to customers, providing dishes made of vegetables, tofu, roots and beans. If there are up to 1000 possible meat dishes, then there are equally up to 1000 corresponding vegetarian ones. From great delicacies to popular courses, all are copies of more established recipes. Free of meat, fish, and any ingredients coming from an animal, the food served at Nang Tam is the practiced result of an artisan who has dedicated her life to vegetarian cooking.

There are not many places to enjoy vegetarian food in Hanoi. On the contrary, in Hue and Saigon, hundreds of vegetarian eateries are available, and remain especially crowded on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month. On Buddhist celebrations and anniversary of and ancestor's death, almost all strict Buddhist followers live on a vegetarian diet. They and those who keep a vegetarian diet all year round help to develop and expand this art of cooking outside the pagoda.

In many people's memories, vegetarian meals are associated with going to the pagoda, when children would accompany their grandmothers to observe rituals before sharing a vegetarian meal with the monks. Such a meal used to be composed of rice, salted vegetables, egg-plants and soybean jam only. From an ascetic rule of Buddhism, vegetarian food has been enhanced, in both quality and etiquette, to a finer level by royal cooks under Nguyen dynasty. "Grandmothers" - ladies in the royal palaces - meticulously spent their whole lives making sophisticated vegetarian food to present flavorful offerings to religious kings and other members of the royal family. The art of vegetarian cooking then expanded from the imperial palace to popular life.