If you’re like me, you probably dread that inevitable moment every evening when your significant other asks: “What should we make for dinner?” God, please no. It’s enough to get my palms sweaty, my complete lack of culinary creativity overwhelming me, the thought of dishes piled high in the sink to wash at the end of the night giving me a preemptive panic attack. Honestly, I’d rather do almost anything else in the world than wash dishes at the end of the night.
As someone who subsists off almonds, oatmeal, and pasta, cooking is not a skill in my repertoire. If you’re lucky like me, your boyfriend loves to cook and will cook you a beautifully seasoned slab of salmon if you ask nicely enough, sometimes if you don’t even ask at all, and then will usually clean the pan afterwards too. He often says he’ll help teach me how to cook a few staple dishes, but honestly, I really don’t even want to. Please, don’t make me learn to cook. I’ve made it 26 years without it and I’d love to keep up that trend.
Which is why it was so incredibly surprising that I was so excited to take part in a Vietnamese cooking class during my time in Southeast Asia. I was on this opportunity like white on rice. Like a fly on poop. Because there was no way I was leaving this food-lover’s paradise, home to the best food I’d ever had the pleasure of eating, without learning some incredible new recipes that I could pretend as if I was actually going to cook once I returned home (hint: I haven’t cooked any of them).
I was recommended this tour by the woman who worked at my ridiculously fun Hoi An hostel (it turns out, hostels always have the best connections). The tour is half a day long, about 4 to 5 hours, and costs a little less than $30. For the food, the instruction, and the other fun activities that this tour has to offer, that is a bargain.
The company is called Hoian Eco Coconut Tours (Hoian, all one word). They offer several different tours, including tours of Da Nang, My Son, the Vietnamese countryside, and Marble Mountain. Our tour was called the Eco Tour and Cooking Class, and, according to their website, it is “TIME TO REMEMBER FOR A LIFE!”
It all started waking up after a long night of drinking at the Tiger Tiger club and stuffing my face with late night banh mi, where I somehow managed to pry myself out of bed at an ungodly hour and be ready for the start of our 8 am tour (this is why I try to explain to people that traveling is not the same as vacationing because when you travel you don’t have the luxury of sleep). The tour included pickup and drop off at your accommodation via minibus.
We were immediately handed a nón lá each (the conical rice farmer’s hat common throughout Southeast Asia). This seemed like cultural appropriation and none of us was entirely sure how appropriate it was but we shrugged and put them on anyway.
Our first stop was a walk through the Hoi An Central Market, where we got to weave through the stalls, learn how to barter (another skill I am generally lacking), and learn which ingredients we would need to create the dishes during the cooking class. The market is a sensory overload: the smell of freshly caught fish hits you like a ton of bricks, rainbows of ripe produce catch your eye every time you turn the corner, and the sounds of yelling back and forth as sales are made is almost deafening. There’s no better place to plunge yourself in another culture than in a city’s central market.
After perusing the aisles of the market, we boarded a boat and took off down the Thu Bon River. The day was grey and overcast, and the breeze was cool along the river, a nice reprieve from the stifling and oppressive heat of the Vietnamese summer.
As we moved down the river, a fisherwoman in a small fishing boat came up and offered to teach us how to fish using a net, which involved carefully gathering the net and throwing it into the river in a swooping, arching motion. I’ve never been fishing in my life so I can’t even begin to explain correctly the terminology. Writing this post has made me realize I possess no real life skills, so that is somewhat depressing. But throwing that net is harder than it looks!
Fishing is an incredibly popular trade in Vietnam; many families, especially the women, fish all around the country and sell their catch in the markets or on the streets of nearby cities in order to support their families. I highly recommend the women’s museum in Hanoi for learning more about female breadwinners and how much they drive the economy.
After our impromptu fishing lesson, we climbed into coracles, or basket boats, and paddled through the Bay Mau nipa forest, surrounded by still, tranquil water and the quiet serenity of the palm trees. Despite all being strapped into neon orange life vests and looking exceptionally and distinctly like lily white tourists while the locals paddled, sans life vests and without a hint of struggle, this part was very cool. This tour, between the market, the fishing boat, and the basket boats, really tries to immerse you into the life of a local, and to help you understand the process of Vietnamese culinary art.
Finally, at the end of one of the canals, we pulled up to the restaurant at which we would partake in the main event: THE COOKING CLASS. Tummies were rumbling, brains were ready to absorb cooking knowledge and delicious recipes. We were provided with aprons and chef hats, and our friendly and enthusiastic teacher welcomed us warmly and promised us what was sure to be a satisfying meal.
The menu for the cooking class (and subsequent feast) included:
- Fresh spring rolls, stuffed with pork, shrimp, and vegetables
- Papaya salad, made with crunchy, fresh vegetables, flavorful herbs, and pork
- Banh xeo, a traditional Vietnamese rice pancake, crispy and filled with egg, shrimp, and bean sprouts
- Juicy and flavorful pork with steamed rice (this particular dish was cooked in a clay pot and so we did not have much hands-on input with it. Still delicious, though)
- Fresh fruit and vegetables, which we were taught how to cut into artsy shapes, a technique I then promptly forgot
The first thing that our chef asked us was if there were any vegetarians among us. We all lined up on either side of a lengthy table dotted with several hot plates, pans, chopsticks and mixing bowls. The vegetarians gathered on one end of the table, where they would be cooking vegetarian versions of all the dishes, which turned out to just exclude all the pork. It was nice that the vegetarians were accommodated without even having to ask, because that is often not the case.
We all had a turn at cooking each communal dish, all using chopsticks. We also got to roll our own spring rolls with whatever fillings we wanted. HECK YEAH, I freaking love spring rolls.
At the end of the class, we all sat down and dug into our freshly prepared, traditional Vietnamese food. Let me tell you, it was exciting to eat a rice pancake, made with my own two pudgy hands, that tasted just like a rice pancake you’d get at any hole in the wall on the streets of Hoi An. The tour company also gives everyone a complimentary bottle of water to wash down each and every tasty morsel.
By the end of the meal, our bellies were a little bit more bulbous, our demeanors a little bit more agreeable, and we were each handed a small book that detailed each recipe that we made during the class. They make it a point to ensure that every ingredient that we used was readily available in our home countries, so that we would be able to apply what we learned during the class to our own every day lives.
The cookbook was one of my favorite souvenirs I’ve ever brought home. I’m saving it for a rainy day, I SWEAR. Or at least until my boyfriend is willing to try one of the recipes for both of us while I watch.
For more information on this fantastic tour, check out the company’s website.
