Cooking in Vietnam: Nine Amazing Dishes and One Gross Salad
I’ve raved online and to my friends and family about the food in Vietnam, which I’ve loved more than any other cuisine on the trip (yes, even Thai). So Hoi An is the perfect place for me to finally sign up for a cooking class. I chose Green Bamboo Cooking School for its reputation around town and their website that promises a cookbook at the end with recipes for all of the dishes I love here.
My day starts with the instructor, Van, picking up me and the eight others in the class and taking us to the market to shop for our ingredients. Photo courtesy of my new British friends, Dan and Charlie, who took some great photos of the day (check out their post on our cooking experience).
We then head to her home/cooking school to get to work prepping our meals together.
Then, each person cooks a dish while Van instructs and explains each step, so we can learn each dish, not just the one we chose to make. Each student serves their own dish, and we all try a plateful of the delicious creations.
My favorites of the day are beef with lemongrass and chili wrapped in mustard leaves, a chicken potato curry, and of course my own bbq pork with peanut sauce. 
As a special treat, Van whips us a salad made with plump silkworms (the other Americans in my group wanted to try them). There was an 8-year-old girl in our group who tried it, so none of us could say no to the heaping pile of worms on a rice cracker. A few of the words used to describe the taste and consistency: cheese, shampoo, exploding tofu. Gross.
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