POL LE, Special to The Denisonian—

A week ago, when my friend Nhi and I saw the menu in the Curtis Dining Hall with the word “Pho” on top, we were thrilled.

It was the traditional Vietnamese food that we had been craving for weeks, and honestly, we were so honored that our cultural cuisine was served on the menu at Denison University, we really needed to taste it right away.

After waiting for the long line, we looked at unfamiliar toppings for Pho at the serving bar, hesitating for a second.

In our country, it was either “Pho Bo” (Beef Noodle) or “Pho Ga”(Chicken Noodle), but never the vegan option with the seasoned brown tofu as we saw in front of us at that moment.

“It doesn’t look appetizing to me,” Nhi said

“Well, just give it a try first. It’s Pho anyway.”

“Ok, but only one bowl then, just to try”,  Nhi said looking at the waiter pouring the soup as the last ingredient into the “vegan Pho”, the dish we used to be so excited about.

We held the bowl having no resemblances to the original version that we had in our hand, slowly brought it back to our table with some other Vietnamese friends who were eating. No one had Pho in their meal.

“Wait. Why does Pho have tofu?”

“How come they have shred cucumbers in them? What is that veggie?”

“Is that really Pho?”

My friends bombarded me with questions, as we all pondered upon whether we should taste it or not. Nhi had the first sip of the soup, and immediately she pulled a wry face.

“Yuck! You better not try it”

“Is it really that bad?” I said in disappointment. I knew that the Pho here would be different, but it should not be so terrible.

I bite the tofu, which was my first and last attempt at the food, and nobody else touched that bowl again. It was sweet and salty, no flavor of basil, coriander seeds, or fennel that I missed. 

I asked Crystal, my Chinese classmate, about the dish and she didn’t like the taste of it either. I didn’t like the fact that international peers may associate the Pho served here with our Vietnamese cuisine, and this thought unsettled me.  

“Well. If they cook Pho like this, they should not have cooked it in the first place”, Nhi shrugged. 

I told the server the feedback from me and my friends, and she directed me to Dylan Brandt, the chef manager of Curtis Dining Hall. Unfortunately, he was busy with the Big Red Weekend, so I failed to contact him.

Later that day, my advisor, Ms. Kaly Thayer, encouraged me to continue emailing dining services. She also gave me this piece of advice:

“Telling someone that they did something wrong or bad and then not helping them change doesn’t help things, so make sure you mention that you are Vietnamese, and that you and several other Vietnamese students want to help improve the way Pho is offered in the dining halls.”

So I emailed Mr. Adam Polling, the general manager of Curtis Dining Hall, and we set up a short meeting right after.

“The vegan Pho bowl was created because our students ordered it that way. However, we can definitely make another version of it, with beef and chicken, if you can send me the recipe for it.”

He told me that the chef will create a small trial meal for me and my friends to evaluate Pho first, then if we all like it, the new dish will be included in the menu for the whole school alongside the vegan option right now.

Moreover, there is a program Bon Appetit launched during the summer for international students to cook their traditional cuisine to add more variety to the current menu of Curtis and Huffman Dining Hall.

“I would love to receive suggestions from you about some recipes of traditional Vietnamese foods. We had the spring rolls events held with DASU the previous day, and we may hold more events soon,” Polling said.

I was impressed by the management with his genuine care for the student and his effective approach to my concern. In the end, we agreed that the Dining Hall will have their first attempt with the new recipe next week for the Pho, and other dishes will be cooked later on.

“We are truly busy this week, but students always go first”, Polling said.

 In the end, I surely appreciate the effort of Denison University as well as the Bon Appetit company to represent a part of Vietnamese culture in their services. However, it is also important to do it properly, the accurate duplication of the original version, in this case, is the Pho bowl, not creating a completely distinctive variant then putting the nametag on it. 

I think the right representation matters, and the right representation takes work.