Vietnam Unit

Like anybody who grew up in the United States from roughly 1960 to 2000, my main knowledge of Vietnam comes from the Vietnam War. Our evolving views on that event are interesting, and not too surprisingly many books I used for our Vietnam Unit touch on that topic. All in all a good geography lesson as we furthered our Asia Unit.

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Vietnam Unit resources

Real quick here are the Vietnam fact sites:

• Vietnam facts from National Geographic
• 50 Vietnam facts– some decently unique facts and pictures
• 40 Thrilling Vietnam facts– THRILLING I SAY!

And there is no Geography Now video yet, he’s in the final 10, so I would guess he’ll have that video posted oh say…. January 2024 maybe?

Which means I got to find fun videos to torture my kids with:

It’s a decent enough game, but not the best.

Vietnam Unit booklist

It was an interesting conglomeration of books

• My First Book of Vietnamese Words-I’m pretty sure I mispronounced every single Vietnamese word, but it has a decent rhyme for each word
• Finding Papa– you might need a tissue and I’ve added it to my Immigration booklist, it’s an amazing story of how the author’s family left Vietnam in 1983
• Year of the Jungle– This is set in the United States as a daughter worries about her Dad in the Vietnam War, it would also be great for a child dealing with their parents being far away for some reason
• Hundred Years of Happiness– it’s an interesting book as the main character’s granddad tries to recreate his wife’s favorite dish that she can no longer make. It’s indistinct enough I could not tell for sure if the family had emigrated and that’s why it was so hard to make the dish or if they were still in Vietnam and had moved
• From the Tops of the Trees– a story from the author’s childhood in a refugee camp during the Vietnam War, I’m beginning to think I need to make a Vietnam War picture book list, but that Venn diagram would practically be a circle with this list
• A Different Pond– another refugee story, but this time after they have moved to America
• The Lotus Seed– the story of a young woman who saw the last emperor cry as he lost his throne and saved a lotus seed, it’s a great touching story as she passes it down to her grandchildren in the US
• America’s White Table– since my booklist for the Vietnam War would essentially be this booklist, I’m going to go ahead and include it here, this talks about the tradition of keeping a White Table set for the POW and MIA starting with the Vietnam War, be prepared to cry if you’re at all sentimental

Vietnam Unit recipe: Pho soup

I attempted to make Pho soup, and I have mixed feelings about how it went. I thought it would be fun to do it completely from scratch just like the instructions say, but I missed one step, and from what my friends tell me, that is why my soup was a little off.

Vietnamese pho ingredients

• 2 large onions sliced into disks
• about 2 inches of ginger sliced down the middle
• 10 star anise
• 4 cinnamon sticks
• 4 cardamom pods– there are apparently both green and black cardamom, I used green, the original recipe did not specify
• 3 cloves
• 1.5 tablespoons coriander seeds
• 1-2 pounds of meaty beef bones
• 4 quarts water
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 3 tablespoons fish sauce
• rice noodles
• steak, sliced very thin
• bean sprouts
• basil
• cilantro
• lime wedges

I find it highly amusing Amazon now sells fresh produce

Let’s make some pho

• Heat a skillet on high heat, once you can feel the heat through the pan put the onion and ginger in the pan cut side down. Cook for a few minutes to get a nice char on the edges, then turn. Take those out and toast the spices for a few minutes.
• Rinse bones then cover with water and boil for 5 minutes, then drain (this is the step I forgot that I’ve been told makes a huge difference). Rinse the bones under water again, and clean out the pot. This is supposed to remove impurities and also drastically changes the flavor somehow, making it slightly less greasy?
• Fill your pot with water again, then add in the bones, onion, ginger, the spices, sugar, and salt. Cover with a lid and simmer for 3 hours. (In the original recipe you were also adding in brisket to add more beef flavor, but boiled brisket sounds horrible, so I didn’t do that)
• Remove the lid and simmer for 30 more minutes. Strain the broth into another pot and add the fish sauce.
• Cook the rice noodles in water according to the package directions.
• To assemble: put noodles in your bowl, and put the thinly sliced RAW beef in the bowl. Add in any other toppings you wish (bean sprouts, cilantro, etc), then pour the boiling broth over the mixture which will cook the meat to medium rare

Reactions to our homemade pho were mixed. I really liked the steak and rice noodles, but felt the broth felt a little greasy or something, it felt off somehow. Superman apparently prefers a more cooked steak than me and put his in the microwave for a little bit to cook the steak more.

Later that week Jeff took us all out to a pho restaurant and we got “official” pho, but it’s also a chain restaurant. I wasn’t super excited by their particular rendition, but probably also partially because I didn’t like the cut of meat they used and it was overcooked.

Yield: 4-6 servings

Vietnamese pho

Print

Try this simple recipe with a complex flavor to try out a traditional Vietnamese dish.

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 4 hours

Total Time 4 hours 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 large onions sliced into disks
• about 2 inches of ginger sliced down the middle
• 10 star anise
• 4 cinnamon sticks
• 4 cardamom pods- there are apparently both green and black cardamom, I used green, the original recipe did not specify
• 3 cloves
• 1.5 tablespoons coriander seeds
• 1-2 pounds of meaty beef bones
• 4 quarts water
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 3 tablespoons fish sauce
• rice noodles
• steak, sliced very thin
• bean sprouts
• basil
• cilantro
• lime wedges

Instructions

1. Heat a skillet on high heat, once you can feel the heat through the pan put the onion and ginger in the pan cut side down. Cook for a few minutes to get a nice char on the edges, then turn. Take those out and toast the spices for a few minutes.
2. Rinse bones then cover with water and boil for 5 minutes, then drain (this is the step I forgot that I’ve been told makes a huge difference). Rinse the bones under water again, and clean out the pot.
3. Fill your pot with water again, then add in the bones, onion, ginger, the spices, sugar, and salt. Cover with a lid and simmer for 3 hours. (In the original recipe you were also adding in brisket to add more beef flavor, but boiled brisket sounds horrible, so I didn’t do that)
4. Remove the lid and simmer for 30 more minutes. Strain the broth into another pot and add the fish sauce.
5. Cook the rice noodles in water according to the package directions.
6. To assemble: put noodles in your bowl, and put the thinly sliced RAW beef in the bowl. Add in any other toppings you wish (bean sprouts, cilantro, etc), then pour the boiling broth over the mixture which will cook the meat to medium rare

Vietnam Unit notebooking pages

We filled out the Asia notebooking pages for our unit.

Since you can’t read my accidentally over-exposed notes (I swear on my computer it is not over-exposed), here are my fun facts:

• It was occupied by Imperial China and France
• It is the largest exporter of dragonfruit
• It has a lot of mopeds
• poop coffee, it is surprising the number of countries that have a form of coffee that has been consumed by an animal, pooped out, and then brewed
• Nguyen is the most common last name- there is a school in the area that has Vietnamese as the ESL class, and I subbed at the associated middle school. The favorite thing of students to do is see how badly subs mangle their last names and laugh
• Bribery is common for traffic fines
• Crossing the streets feels like an accomplishment

I wish Geography Now had this one completed because seriously having several facts about traffic written down is rather sad. Poor Ticia.

This post will be updated once he comes out with that video.

All right, let’s see what I can find for cool things to share with y’all:

Because you’ve read this far, let’s see you might like.

Apparently, I went with an Asian theme for what I picked out.

• Visiting the Traveling Vietnam Wall
• Why did the United States enter the Vietnam War?– the answer Domino Theory
• Great Wall of China lesson– you cannot see it from space
• Chinese Dragon puppet– a fun silly craft
• Korea Unit– I don’t remember if this unit is specified for North or South Korea, I think it started off as a North Korea Unit? I wrote it years ago. I have had many years to forget

Now to search for the picture I used again because apparently, I did not save where I found it to show I am using it under Creative Commons.

Photo location, in public domain