In search of lost time: tradition and identity in culinary narratives about old Hanoi

ABSTRACT

This paper studies an emergent sociocultural phenomenon involving the construction of Hanoi’s old town as a signifier of taste, tradition and identity. Starting with the insights gotten from ethnographic observation and analysis, it then draws on local literary works to provide an account of narratives having been put together around the old Hanoi’s superior cuisine, prestigious tradition, and noble identity. In light of the Bourdieusian thesis of taste and social distinction supported by further theoretical developments from the perspective of post-modern culinary consumption, it wraps up by discussing the impacts of these narratives on the commodification of food and foodways in the old town and the construction of contemporary Hanoian identity. The results show that this phenomenon embodies a yearning for sociohistorical belonging, an appeal for identity status enhancement, and an elevation of cultural nationalism in post-reform Hanoi.

KEYWORDS:

• Taste
• food
• narrative
• pho
• tradition
• identity
• old town
• Hanoi

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Guild streets in Hanoi’s old town possess similarities in comparison with medieval guild streets in Central Europe (Waibel 2004).

2. The name Ke Cho was used to refer to the marketplace which is presently the old town (cf. Rhodes 1651).

3. There were from 10,000 to 15,000 residents moving out of the old town in the 1997- 2004 period (Waibel 2004).

4. ELLA is referred to as “an ethnographic-theoretical framework in which landscape signs are seen as traces of (and instrument for) social action” (Blommaert and Maly 2019, 1).

5. Geosemiotics is defined as “the study of the social meaning of the material placement of signs and discourses and of our actions in the material world” (Ron and Scollon 2003, 2).

6. The old sign reads Com Que (“Que’s Rice”).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tu Thien Tran

Tu Thien Tran got his PhD degree from the University of Alberta (Canada). His research addresses a variety of sociocultural issues and focuses on, among others, the ideological forms of consciousness which underlie linguistic and culinary practices.