Pho

Pho is built on its broth: beef bones simmered for hours with charred ginger and onion and warm spices such as star anise, cinnamon and clove until clear, fragrant and deeply savoury. It is ladled over flat rice noodles and thin slices of beef, then finished at the table with bean sprouts, Thai basil, lime and chilli.

Eaten morning to night, it is Vietnam's national comfort food — light yet profoundly aromatic.

Pho emerged in northern Vietnam around the early 20th century, near Hanoi, blending local rice noodles with influences from Chinese noodle soups and the French taste for beef (the word pho is often linked to French pot-au-feu). After the 1954 partition, refugees carried it south, where a sweeter, herb-laden Saigon style developed.

Vietnamese emigration after 1975 then spread pho across the world. Its two great schools — restrained northern pho bac and lavish southern pho nam — still define the dish today.