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How One Chef in Vietnam Uses Fish Sauce as the Foundation for Flavor

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Thursday, March 27, 2025

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — The taste of banh te — a steamed rice cake with an enticing filling of mushrooms and minced pork — captures the quintessence of northern Vietnamese cuisine: Humble ingredients, prepared perfectly and often enjoyed with a funky fish sauce dip.This balance of flavors is what Quang Dung, the chef and owner of Chapter Dining in Hanoi, sought in his modern take on the dish. His version of banh te is unapologetically fancy. The steamed rice cake is enriched with pork stock and served with a raw scallop and pickled daikon shavings. Freshness comes from coriander used several ways, sweetness from fried shallot oil, and a delicate floral essence extracted from a giant water bug used in northern Vietnamese cooking. And then, a splash of fish sauce — or nuoc mam — brings it all together in a savory broth that suffuses the dish. “Fish sauce is one of the foundations for flavor,” he said.It's also the basis for Vietnam’s diverse and vibrant cuisine. Just a drop of the amber liquid can transform a dish by boosting umami and savory notes. Made by fermenting fish — often anchovies that are getting harder to catch because of climate change — in salt for many months, the taste of each bottle varies depending on factors like the ratio of salt to fish or the length of fermentation. Fish sauce is a staple across Vietnam, used in a variety of dishes. As a dipping sauce for spring rolls or savory crepes called banh xeo. In marinades for grilled meat dishes like Hanoi's pork and noodle classic called bun cha. In salad dressings and in braised meat dishes like the southern classic where pork is cooked in bittersweet caramel and fish sauce. Much of Vietnam’s cuisine is shaped by the decades of hardship during and after the Vietnam War, but today its economy and its cities are booming. And fish sauce is finding its way into unusual applications.In Hanoi, fish sauce is used in some cocktails to add umami, and Dung has used it to add a Vietnamese twist to French hollandaise sauce and even flavor ice cream. “It is very versatile," he said. "A lot of fun to use and to explore.”Dung’s culinary explorations began early. His mother taught him to cook at 10 so he could feed himself while his banker parents worked long hours. He learned how to make rice, fry eggs, and boil vegetables. Soon after, he was braising pork and making spicy fried rice. Growing up, he assumed everyone could cook — after all, his friends in Hanoi could. But it wasn’t until he moved to the United Kingdom as a teenager to finish high school that he realized this wasn’t the case.He eventually studied finance in coastal Devon, but while working part-time in restaurants, he fell in love with all things food: learning from his peers, consuming cookbooks by top chefs, and spending all his savings to eat out at restaurants. “When you’re 18, you’re a sponge. You absorb everything,” he said.He came back to Vietnam in 2013 and got a job working in a bank. But every evening, he worked a second job — as a junior chef for a five-star hotel in Hanoi at night. He eventually quit both jobs in 2015 and started a gastropub in Hanoi. That didn’t go according to plan as he “managed to do everything wrong.” More failures followed — he calls them “lessons in my dictionary” — but in 2021 he opened Chapter Dining, a fine dining restaurant in the heart of Hanoi’s Old Quarter that celebrates local, seasonal produce and the cooking traditions of Vietnam’s mountainous north. The restaurant, with its facade of steel slats, leads to an open kitchen where Dung and his team regularly create a 14-course tasting menu that won it a spot in the coveted Michelin Guide Hanoi in 2023 and 2024.“I can finally call it ... my restaurant, my food, my philosophy,” he said.Central to that philosophy is sustainability. Each menu is seasonal — warm, comforting dishes for the cold months and fresh, lighter dishes in the summer — and the ingredients are locally sourced. Given the erratic weather in the climate-vulnerable country, this means that he can't always be sure of what produce will be available. So the menu adapts, letting nature decide, and the bottle of fish sauce is never too far away.“Fish sauce isn’t just about saltiness. It is as much about umaminess. It is magic,” he said, adding that he hoped more people would cook with fish sauce.A good starting point, he suggested, is to use it to add a bit of that magic to the humble omelet. Three eggs, two teaspoons of fish sauce, a heap of finely diced spring onions all beaten together. Add pork fat to a hot pan and roll the eggs around. “And then you’ve got a very nice fish sauce omelet. That goes down really well with rice,” he said.The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

The humble fish sauce has been a staple ingredient in Vietnamese kitchens for centuries

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — The taste of banh te — a steamed rice cake with an enticing filling of mushrooms and minced pork — captures the quintessence of northern Vietnamese cuisine: Humble ingredients, prepared perfectly and often enjoyed with a funky fish sauce dip.

This balance of flavors is what Quang Dung, the chef and owner of Chapter Dining in Hanoi, sought in his modern take on the dish. His version of banh te is unapologetically fancy. The steamed rice cake is enriched with pork stock and served with a raw scallop and pickled daikon shavings. Freshness comes from coriander used several ways, sweetness from fried shallot oil, and a delicate floral essence extracted from a giant water bug used in northern Vietnamese cooking.

And then, a splash of fish sauce — or nuoc mam — brings it all together in a savory broth that suffuses the dish.

“Fish sauce is one of the foundations for flavor,” he said.

It's also the basis for Vietnam’s diverse and vibrant cuisine. Just a drop of the amber liquid can transform a dish by boosting umami and savory notes. Made by fermenting fish — often anchovies that are getting harder to catch because of climate change — in salt for many months, the taste of each bottle varies depending on factors like the ratio of salt to fish or the length of fermentation.

Fish sauce is a staple across Vietnam, used in a variety of dishes. As a dipping sauce for spring rolls or savory crepes called banh xeo. In marinades for grilled meat dishes like Hanoi's pork and noodle classic called bun cha. In salad dressings and in braised meat dishes like the southern classic where pork is cooked in bittersweet caramel and fish sauce. Much of Vietnam’s cuisine is shaped by the decades of hardship during and after the Vietnam War, but today its economy and its cities are booming. And fish sauce is finding its way into unusual applications.

In Hanoi, fish sauce is used in some cocktails to add umami, and Dung has used it to add a Vietnamese twist to French hollandaise sauce and even flavor ice cream.

“It is very versatile," he said. "A lot of fun to use and to explore.”

Dung’s culinary explorations began early. His mother taught him to cook at 10 so he could feed himself while his banker parents worked long hours. He learned how to make rice, fry eggs, and boil vegetables. Soon after, he was braising pork and making spicy fried rice. Growing up, he assumed everyone could cook — after all, his friends in Hanoi could. But it wasn’t until he moved to the United Kingdom as a teenager to finish high school that he realized this wasn’t the case.

He eventually studied finance in coastal Devon, but while working part-time in restaurants, he fell in love with all things food: learning from his peers, consuming cookbooks by top chefs, and spending all his savings to eat out at restaurants. “When you’re 18, you’re a sponge. You absorb everything,” he said.

He came back to Vietnam in 2013 and got a job working in a bank. But every evening, he worked a second job — as a junior chef for a five-star hotel in Hanoi at night. He eventually quit both jobs in 2015 and started a gastropub in Hanoi. That didn’t go according to plan as he “managed to do everything wrong.” More failures followed — he calls them “lessons in my dictionary” — but in 2021 he opened Chapter Dining, a fine dining restaurant in the heart of Hanoi’s Old Quarter that celebrates local, seasonal produce and the cooking traditions of Vietnam’s mountainous north.

The restaurant, with its facade of steel slats, leads to an open kitchen where Dung and his team regularly create a 14-course tasting menu that won it a spot in the coveted Michelin Guide Hanoi in 2023 and 2024.

“I can finally call it ... my restaurant, my food, my philosophy,” he said.

Central to that philosophy is sustainability. Each menu is seasonal — warm, comforting dishes for the cold months and fresh, lighter dishes in the summer — and the ingredients are locally sourced. Given the erratic weather in the climate-vulnerable country, this means that he can't always be sure of what produce will be available. So the menu adapts, letting nature decide, and the bottle of fish sauce is never too far away.

“Fish sauce isn’t just about saltiness. It is as much about umaminess. It is magic,” he said, adding that he hoped more people would cook with fish sauce.

A good starting point, he suggested, is to use it to add a bit of that magic to the humble omelet. Three eggs, two teaspoons of fish sauce, a heap of finely diced spring onions all beaten together. Add pork fat to a hot pan and roll the eggs around.

“And then you’ve got a very nice fish sauce omelet. That goes down really well with rice,” he said.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

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Portland Youth Climate Strike rally at Portland City Hall

A little over 100 high school students rallied at Portland City Hall, calling attention more aggressive climate policy on federal, state and local level

High school students representing a handful of Portland schools formed a modest presence in front of Portland City Hall Tuesday morning, where they marked Earth Day by demanding more aggressive federal, state and local policy to halt climate change.The Portland Youth Climate Strike attracted more than 100 students, who carried signs and gave speeches before marching to Pioneer Courthouse Square, where more speeches were briefly given before the event reached its close. Rally organizer Jorge Sanchez Bautista, 18, said he first got involved in climate activism when he noticed freight trains that sometimes carried fuel come through his neighborhood. The Franklin High School senior, who is running for the Portland school board to represent Zone 5, lives in Cully.“As youth, over time we are the ones who are going to have to deal with all the issues that go with the planet, our animals and the environment,” he said. “We’re inheriting a planet that will be based on how we care for it,” he said. Portland Youth Climate Strikers gather on Earth Day at Portland City Hall. From there, the group marched to Pioneer Courthouse Square. April 22, 2025.Beth NakamuraJacob Apenes, 26, was among the speakers at Pioneer Courthouse Square. Apenes, who is an organizer with youth climate group Sunrise PDX, said he’s been afraid about environmental changes for a long time. “When I was 11, I learned about this world-ending crisis in my 6th-grade science class,” he told the crowd.“I learned that ... climate change is a huge threat, but people are working hard to stop it,” he said. “Fifteen years later, and have we stopped anything?” he asked.--Beth NakamuraInstagram: @bethnakamura

Progressive Christianity’s Bleak Future

Pope Francis leaves behind a Church that is moving away from the faith he championed.

In his final Easter address, Pope Francis touched on one of the major themes of his 12-year papacy, that love, hope, and peace are possible amid a rising tide of violence and extremism: “What a great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day in the many conflicts raging in different parts of our world!” Archbishop Diego Ravelli read the prepared text aloud to crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square, because Francis was by then too ill to deliver his remarks himself: “How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants!” The hallmark of a truly Christian sentiment is its radicalism, how deeply it subverts systems of worldly power and domination. Francis understood that.Accordingly, his observations about the revolutionary truth of Christianity with respect to global political affairs were often rejected, sometimes bitterly, by the world leaders he meant to exhort. His opponents were mainly conservatives of various stripes—some traditionalists upset by his relative coldness toward older liturgies, some members of the political right frustrated with his unwillingness to spiritually cooperate in their sociopolitical projects. Thus some conservatives were positively delighted by Francis’s death. The risible Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted, “Today there were major shifts in global leaderships. Evil is being defeated by the hand of God.” Greene’s own Christianity was evidently insufficient to discourage such profound judgment, and hers may unfortunately be the way of the future.[Read: The papacy is forever changed]To what evil might Greene refer? Perhaps Francis’s embrace of philosophical concerns associated with politically progressive causes—such as climate change, as addressed in his landmark encyclical Laudato Si’ (“Praised Be”). Francis wrote that “the earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth,” an epiphenomenon of what he called “throwaway culture,” which encourages not only waste and environmental degradation but also a cavalier disinterest in the lives of the poor in favor of wanton consumption. “We fail to see that some are mired in desperate and degrading poverty,” he wrote, “with no way out, while others have not the faintest idea what to do with their possessions, vainly showing off their supposed superiority and leaving behind them so much waste which, if it were the case everywhere, would destroy the planet.” The pope had a keen sense of class consciousness, which he pointedly expressed in a speech last year to leaders of global popular movements: “It is often precisely the wealthiest who oppose the realization of social justice or integral ecology out of sheer greed,” he said, adding that humanity’s future may well depend “on the community action of the poor of the Earth.” The marginalized people of the world were always Francis’s beloved, a Christian principle that led him to intervene on behalf of migrants, documented and undocumented, whenever he could.In fact, it was the pope’s efforts to quell growing Western hostility toward migrants that recently put him directly at odds with the Trump administration. After Vice President J. D. Vance had a public spat with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops over the rollback of a Biden-era law preventing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from apprehending undocumented migrants in schools and churches, Francis wrote a letter that seemed to chastise Vance directly. “The true ordo amoris,” Francis wrote, citing a Catholic term Vance had invoked to defend the proposition that love of kin and countryman should reign supreme, “is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘good Samaritan.’” That is, he continued, “by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”Admirers of Francis’s papacy have reason to worry for the Christianity that lies ahead. I had presumed with some sorrow, tracking long trends of vanishing American religion, that Christianity’s days here were numbered, and perhaps they still are. The country has long been headed in a secular direction. But that seems to be changing now—the decline is on pause, and another shift is under way, from a politically varied multitude to a more decidedly right-wing bloc.A recent study from Pew Research Center documented the pause. “For the last five years, between 2019 and 2024, the Christian share of the adult population has been relatively stable,” the study’s authors wrote—hovering just below two-thirds of the population. The reasons for this stabilization are undoubtedly complex, and I was heartened by these numbers—but they may well spell doom for the kind of progressive Christianity that Francis evidently hoped to shore up. In particular, it’s possible that the much-discussed departure of young, progressive people from the faith is almost complete: Virtually everyone who was going to leave has left. And now that the young progressives are nearly all gone, the overall decline has ceased, leaving behind a more solid—and conservative—core of believers. Meanwhile, it also seems that new conservative converts are joining the faith, and bringing their politics with them. The result will be a much more conservative American Christianity.[Read: What border-hawk catholics don’t get]Which isn’t to say that American Christianity has generally been associated with progressivism; it hasn’t, but the two weren’t always as opposed as they seem now. Over the past decade, most Christian traditions in America have shifted rightward politically: Ryan P. Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University who studies religion, found that from 2008 to 2018, 27 out of 34 Christian traditions surveyed became more conservative, judging by changes in congregants’ party affiliations. Burge alluded to the reason in a social-media post earlier this month, noting that although 42 percent of very liberal survey respondents identified as nonreligious in 2008, by 2024 the number had skyrocketed to 62 percent, meaning that progressives have left religion in droves. Accordingly, the Gallup senior scientist Frank Newport wrote in 2023, “everything else being equal, the more religious the individual in the U.S. today, the higher the probability that the individual identifies with or leans toward the Republican party.”Today’s American Christianity, therefore, is a good fit for young men of the right. “As pastor of a parish in South Carolina, I am witnessing a remarkable trend,” Father Dwight Longenecker, a conservative priest, wrote in a 2024 article for National Catholic Register: “Almost every week I receive a call, email or visit from at least one young man interested in learning more about the Catholic religion.” These new converts are undoubtedly somewhat diverse in their interests and beliefs, but a common theme in their conversion stories is disillusionment with modernity, and attraction to Catholicism as a source of stability, tradition, and ethics that transcend time and place. “I felt like the modern world was constantly in flux,” Vance, one such young convert, said of his own recent entry into Catholicism at a 2021 conference. “The things that you believed 10 years ago were no longer even acceptable to believe 10 years later.” This is conservatism in the classical sense, and like Vance, young men journeying into Christianity for conservative reasons typically have conservative politics.  Conservative Christian politics are not everywhere and always destructive, but today’s right is more extreme than its recent predecessors. I fear that the next era of American Christianity will be about conquest and triumph rather than peace and humility, and will profligately lend its imprimatur to nationalist agendas that are hostile to the weak and the marginalized. (Vance’s invocation of the ordo amoris to justify the Trump administration’s extreme anti-immigrant politics is perhaps a preview of things to come.) And that would be a devastating development, not just because of the predictable political consequences of such an alignment, but also because the Christianity Francis represented really is loyal to the Gospels in its devotion to the people Jesus loved so much, whose fortunes are rarely of interest to people in power: the poor, the sick, the oppressed and exploited, the displaced and rejected. It was for those that Francis prayed, wrote, and spoke, and to them that he dedicated his time on the chair of St. Peter. And theirs will be the kingdom of heaven.

Trump Celebrates Earth Day by Gutting Key EPA Office

Several employees in the Environmental Protection Agency spent their Earth Day learning that they needed to find new jobs. Hundreds of staffers in the department’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights were laid off as part of a reduction in force Tuesday, as were employees working on environmental justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in regional offices.In February, environmental justice staffers were placed on administrative leave and some of the agency’s probationary workers were fired. Now, 280 workers involved with environmental justice and diversity, equity and inclusion will be terminated, with 175 other EPA workers being assigned to new jobs. It’s all part of EPA chief Lee Zedlin’s pledge to drive “a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion.” According to an EPA memo obtained by NBC News, the reduction in force will take effect on July 31. The EPA under Trump is ditching its mission of actually protecting the environment. The department rolled back environmental regulations last month along with parts of the Clean Air Act. In addition to the rollbacks and cuts, the agency also tried to cut grants to nonprofit organizations in an attack on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction fund, set up by President Biden with the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. A federal judge temporarily nixed those plans last month. The regulatory changes that Zedlin is pushing with Trump’s blessing will harm countless Americans, including Trump’s supporters. “It’s practically inevitable” that more people will get sick from reduced regulation and the loss of funding, one EPA staffer anonymously told TNR earlier this month.It’s fitting that Tuesday’s layoff announcement fell on Earth Day, because the Trump administration has shown that it cares little, if anything, about the earth. The new energy secretary, fracking executive Chris Wright, last month described climate change as the “side effect of building the modern world.” The FBI has moved to criminalize groups like Habitat for Humanity for receiving grants from the EPA under the Biden administration, and Trump himself has claimed that climate change will provide more seafront property and is therefore better for real estate. The White House is celebrating Earth Day by making the planet worse.

Several employees in the Environmental Protection Agency spent their Earth Day learning that they needed to find new jobs. Hundreds of staffers in the department’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights were laid off as part of a reduction in force Tuesday, as were employees working on environmental justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in regional offices.In February, environmental justice staffers were placed on administrative leave and some of the agency’s probationary workers were fired. Now, 280 workers involved with environmental justice and diversity, equity and inclusion will be terminated, with 175 other EPA workers being assigned to new jobs. It’s all part of EPA chief Lee Zedlin’s pledge to drive “a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion.” According to an EPA memo obtained by NBC News, the reduction in force will take effect on July 31. The EPA under Trump is ditching its mission of actually protecting the environment. The department rolled back environmental regulations last month along with parts of the Clean Air Act. In addition to the rollbacks and cuts, the agency also tried to cut grants to nonprofit organizations in an attack on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction fund, set up by President Biden with the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. A federal judge temporarily nixed those plans last month. The regulatory changes that Zedlin is pushing with Trump’s blessing will harm countless Americans, including Trump’s supporters. “It’s practically inevitable” that more people will get sick from reduced regulation and the loss of funding, one EPA staffer anonymously told TNR earlier this month.It’s fitting that Tuesday’s layoff announcement fell on Earth Day, because the Trump administration has shown that it cares little, if anything, about the earth. The new energy secretary, fracking executive Chris Wright, last month described climate change as the “side effect of building the modern world.” The FBI has moved to criminalize groups like Habitat for Humanity for receiving grants from the EPA under the Biden administration, and Trump himself has claimed that climate change will provide more seafront property and is therefore better for real estate. The White House is celebrating Earth Day by making the planet worse.

Remembering Pope Francis on Earth Day: How He Linked Capitalism, Climate & Catholicism

As the Vatican prepares the funeral for Pope Francis and church leaders begin to consider his replacement, we look at the late pontiff’s environmental legacy. Pope Francis frequently called for action on the climate crisis and urged his followers to be good stewards of the Earth. He also openly criticized the role of wealthy nations and capitalism in causing the climate crisis. “He brought together the riches of Christian and Catholic tradition to bear with the prophetic work of social movements around the world in confronting a global crisis,” says Nathan Schneider, professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Schneider is also a contributing writer at America, a national Catholic weekly magazine published by the Jesuits, where he has been covering Catholic engagement with climate change and the economy. Pope Francis argued that “our relationship with the Earth depends on justice among people, and that in order to address this environmental crisis, we need to also address the crisis of disposability, of treating not only the planet, but each other, as disposable,” says Schneider.

As the Vatican prepares the funeral for Pope Francis and church leaders begin to consider his replacement, we look at the late pontiff’s environmental legacy. Pope Francis frequently called for action on the climate crisis and urged his followers to be good stewards of the Earth. He also openly criticized the role of wealthy nations and capitalism in causing the climate crisis. “He brought together the riches of Christian and Catholic tradition to bear with the prophetic work of social movements around the world in confronting a global crisis,” says Nathan Schneider, professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Schneider is also a contributing writer at America, a national Catholic weekly magazine published by the Jesuits, where he has been covering Catholic engagement with climate change and the economy. Pope Francis argued that “our relationship with the Earth depends on justice among people, and that in order to address this environmental crisis, we need to also address the crisis of disposability, of treating not only the planet, but each other, as disposable,” says Schneider.

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