Editor’s note: This is a recurring post, regularly updated with new information. As travelers are returning to the skies, airlines are beginning to resume some services that were temporarily cut due to the pandemic. In an effort to lower the risk of contamination and save some cash, airlines made drastic changes to their services, both on …
cake’ or ‘
bread’. The word
bánh therefore appears in many Vietnamese dishes.
Bánh bao, for example, translates to ‘bun bánh’ and is the name for filled steamed dumplings;
bánh bo, or ‘cow bánh’ are chewy sponge cakes.
Mì is the Vietnamese word for ‘wheat’, so
bánh mì can be translated as ‘wheat banh’. Bánh mì can refer to just the bread or the sandwich. There are some claims that bánh mì comes from the French term for soft bread,
pain de mie. However, the fact that the word
bánh has been in the Vietnamese vocabulary since the 13th century makes this a rather unlikely etymology.