Tracing Banh Mi

Chewing the Fat

Banh mi, the Vietnamese sandwich, has become a widely beloved dish. With its unique combination of flavors—crunchy bread, sour pickled carrots, fresh cucumbers, savory cold cuts, among other things—banh mi has captured the imagination of people, even at non-Vietnamese establishments. How did this happen? What can we learn when we examine the history of this distinctive sandwich, from the time of French colonization in Vietnam, to the period of refugee migrations following the Vietnam War, to now?

Episode Guests:

Quan Tran, lecturer in the Ethnicity, Race, and Migration Program at Yale University
Soleil Ho, restaurant food critic at the San Francisco Chronicle
Duc Nguyen, a banh mi chef and shop-owner of Duc’s Place in New Haven, CT.

about us:

website: https://www.sustainablefood.yale.edu/chewing-the-fat-podcast

facebook: @yalesustainablefoodprogram

twitter: @ysfp

instagram: @ysfp

Chewing the Fat is a podcast from the Yale Sustainable Food Program. We cover people making change in the complex world of food and agriculture. We’re home to brilliant minds: activists, academics, chefs, entrepreneurs, farmers, journalists, policymakers, and scientists (to name a few!). Taken together, their work represents a reimagining of mainstream food movements, challenging myths and tropes as well as inspiring new ways of collaborating.

The podcast is an aural accompaniment to our on-campus Chewing the Fat speaker series, aiming to broaden our content beyond New Haven. Episodes are released every two weeks, featuring interviews, storytelling and more.

On the farm, in the classroom, and around the world, the Yale Sustainable Food Program (YSFP) grows food-literate leaders. We create opportunities for students to experience food, agriculture, and sustainability as integral parts of their education and everyday lives. For more information, please visit sustainablefood.yale.edu.