Phở recently took center stage on Google’s homepage with a special animated Doodle.
About the Doodle: Google celebrated Vietnam’s annual “Day of Phở” on Sunday by temporarily changing its logo to feature the popular Vietnamese noodle soup.
- The search engine company tapped Hanoi-based artist Lucia Pham for the digital illustration that shows a hot bowl of phở being prepared.
- The Doodle features ingredients such as fresh herbs, thinly sliced meat and steaming hot broth added to rice noodles called “bánh phở.”
- According to Pham, she incorporated Vietnamese design motifs that are popular in Vietnam, such as the colorful cement tiles.
- Pham hopes her Doodle will “ help those who do not understand the ingredients and how to make phở better. Phở is a very precious Vietnamese dish, so I would like to cherish and recommend it.”
Treasured heritage: Phở, which is Vietnam’s national dish, is believed to have originated from similar noodle dishes enjoyed in the region that evolved during the French occupation in Vietnam between the late 19th century and the early 20th century, reported BBC.
- Historians have attributed the development of the dish to either the French or the Chinese communities in the country who both heavily influenced Vietnamese cuisine at the time.
- The French introduced the consumption of red meat to the Vietnamese, who relied on buffaloes for farming. One of the dishes that grew in popularity was a beef stew called “pot-au-feu,” which could have inspired the name “phở.”
- Chinese communities in northern Vietnam popularized a noodle dish with beef called “牛肉粉” (beef with noodles) at around the same period.
- “Rice noodles and other spices used in making the broth undoubtedly have a connection with Chinese people in the north,” Vietnamese food writer Alex Tran said. “However, beef is not the daily meat of the Vietnamese as we use buffaloes for farming. Only under the French colonial regime did the consumption of beef start to appear and bloom.”
- Today, phở remains widely consumed in Vietnam, with multiple shops across the country selling different variations of the beloved dish.
- Over the years, the dish has gained popularity in different countries where communities of Vietnamese origin reside.
- In 2018, the Vietnamese government officially marked Dec. 12 as the “Day of Phở” in a bid to further promote the dish to the world.
Featured Image via Google
