Secrets of the Red Lantern : stories and Vietnamese recipes from the heart

Secrets of the Red Lantern is a bittersweet family saga in which treasured recipes form the threads that bind members together for life. It is both a moving memoir and a dazzling collection of sumptuous Vietnamese recipes, complete with beautiful food, location and personal photography. Pauline Nguyen tells the honest, difficult story of her family, following the journey of her parents from their homeland in Vietnam on their escape to Thailand as refugees, and then on to their eventual resettlement in Australia. They moved to Sydney's most vibrant and notorious Vietnamese enclave where Pauline and her brother Luke grew up. Pauline, Luke and Pauline's husband Mark Jensen now run Red Lantern, an acclaimed, modern Vietnamese restaurant in Sydney's popular inner-city area of Surry Hills. At the heart of this story is a love of food. It helped to placate homesickness, became central to the family's early success in Australia and was sometimes the only language the family could use to communicate with each other. In the end, it was this shared passion for food that reconciled the family and help create Red Lantern's success.

In my family, food is our language. Food enables us to communicate the things we find so hard to say." -Pauline Nguyen

Overflowing with sumptuous but simply prepared dishes that have been passed down through generations of the Nguyen family, Secrets of the Red Lantern is part Vietnamese cookbook and part family memoir.

More than 275 traditional Vietnamese recipes are presented alongside a visual narrative of food and family photographs that follows the family's escape from war-torn Vietnam to the successful founding of the Red Lantern restaurant.

At the heart of each recipe is the power of food to elevate and transform. From a recipe of cari de that sparks a memory to the distinctly bitter melon soup that says, "I'm sorry," Secrets of the Red Lantern shares the rich culinary heritage of the Nguyen family and their personal story of reconciliation and success.

Recipes like Bun Rieu (Crab and Tomato Soup with Vermicelli Noodles), Goi Du Du (Green Papaya Salad with Prawns and Pork), and Che Khoai Mon (Black Sticky Rice with Taro), unlock the family's secrets and see the family persevere through homesickness, heartache, and the upheavals of change to finally experience growth and celebration. The result is a beautiful journey through Vietnamese history, culture, and tradition.

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review.

In this moving culinary account of her family's immigration from their native Vietnam, restaurateur Nguyen of Sydney, Australia begins: "In my family, food is our language...when we cannot speak the words "I am sorry"-we give this bittersweet soup instead." Luckily, Nguyen is also skilled in written language; her moving, honest and painful story follows her family's dramatic exodus from their war-ravaged homeland to the safety of Australia. There, Nguyen's parents opened the restaurant that would give Pauline and her brother Luke the foundation for their current enterprise, The Red Lantern, one of Sydney's most popular dining destinations. Worth the price alone is Nguyen's masterful storytelling, including a warts-and-all look at her family and the immigrant experience. The book's arc is entirely film-ready; indeed, color images of people, places and dishes are striking. And then there's the recipes: more than 275 traditional Vietnamese dishes, all relatively simple to prepare (though some might require some tenacious shopping). Nguyen's wide net catches classic comfort food like Pho Bo Tai Nam, the traditional beef noodle soup, and slow-cooked pork shoulder; fish dishes like Crispy-Skin Snapper with Ginger and Lime Fish Sauce; easy appetizers like Tom Nuong (Soy and Honey Grilled Shrimp); and exotic fare like Durian Ice Cream. Whether you buy it for the story, recipes or both, this is an essential volume for those interested in Vietnamese cooking and culture.
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Most recipe books promise (as a matter of course) sumptuous recipes, but Secrets of the Red Lantern (subtitled Stories and Vietnamese Recipes from the Heart ) really does deliver that, and a lot more besides. Pauline Nguyen's parents presented these recipes night after night at the highly successful Vietnamese restaurant The Red Lantern, and these were recipes which had been perfected and passed down over many years. The great majority of these recipes are easily achievable, utilising a relatively small range of ingredients; they include such delights as Pho Bo Tai Nam, a beef soup with sawtooth coriander and Vietnamese basil, or pork belly (Thit Ba Roi). All are presented here in a concise and accessible fashion. But recipes are not all that Secrets of the Red Lantern has to offer. This is more than a cookbook: it is a candid and often moving story of Pauline Nguyen's family, beginning with their dangerous escape from Vietnam during the war and their ultimate settling down in Australia. The love of food is something more than a professional necessity for this family: it helped to assuage their home sickness, and even reconciled differences within the family (these personal passages are quite as beguiling as the more practical cookery aspects of the book). Most of all, though, this is a feast of the most tantalising of foreign recipes, burnished with food and personal photography -- and it is the latter which conveys the very individual nature of the food so resplendently on offer here. -- Barry Forshaw Skin, bones and the basics -- My mother and her mother -- The oceans of uncertainty -- The three big mistakes -- The chinks in his armour -- Pho Cay Du -- The missing years -- Red is for reconciliation -- Red is for revival -- Red is for life.;A bittersweet family sage in which treasured recipes form the threads that bind members together for life. It is both a moving memoir and a dazzling collection of sumptuous Vietnamese recipes, complete with beautiful food, locatio nand personal photography. Much more than a collection of authentic recipes from Viatnamese restaurant Red Lantern, this is the story of the Nguyen family as told by daughter Pauline - documenting their escape from Vietnam and eventual resettlement in Australia A collection of recipes from successful Vietnamese restaurant Red Lantern, this book is the story of the Nguyen family as told by daughter Pauline - documenting their escape from Vietnam and eventual resettlement in Australia.