From baguette sandwiches to Roman Catholic architecture, the colonial legacy is everywhere in Vietnam

A place with a definitive French flair like no other, it’s one of the first destinations of my ‘revenge travel’ series

One of those indelible legacies the pandemic has bestowed upon me — besides the heightened sense of anxiety and a borderline pathological cleanliness OCD — is a mild gluten intolerance. “ Anathema to an itinerant food and travel writer,” one might say. An emphatic “ no big deal” is what I’m known to shoot that down with these days. There’s a gluten-free alternative to just about anything edible. Yes, even good old beer!

But long before the culinary world sought out such benign alternatives to cater to us gluten-challenged souls, the Vietnamese had an ace up their sleeves for a whole other set of reasons. But more on that a little later.

I find myself in Vietnam these days. It’s one of the first destinations of my ‘revenge travel’ series that I’ve planned for the next couple of months. A place with a definitive French flair like no other.

As one might know, from 1887 until the Geneva Accord of 1954, Vietnam was part of French ‘Indochine’, a vast colonial stronghold which also included Laos and Cambodia. Even now, almost 70 years later, it’s easy to find French influences throughout the region, albeit with a few twists.

For instance, my quotidian breakfast staple is a yummy, toasted bánh mi sandwich. A mini baguette-like sandwich stuffed with a curious assortment of French fillings and condiments like roast pork, pork pâté, and mayonnaise that pair superbly with typically Asian ones like sweet chilli sauce and fresh coriander fronds.

But it’s the crusty baguette that puts it all into better perspective for me. What started off as regular-sized French baguette made with de rigueur wheat flour at the beginning of the colonial rule morphed into the mini gluten-free Vietnamese style bread made using rice flour (a South East Asian staple) — imparting the bread with a more airy and porous texture like never before.

There are French-style bakeries throughout Vietnam, serving not just the bánh mi in its various permutations and combinations, but also the beloved French coffee. Another surprise in the otherwise tea-obsessed continent.