Food authenticity is overrated. There, I said it.

I had reservations about making the classic Vietnamese dish “Canh Hẹ” or chives soup, because I didn’t have garlic chives on hand (the traditional ingredient that goes into this dish). I wanted to use the abundance of onion chives and nettles that grow in my backyard, because those things are what I have on hands.

Still worried about disrespecting a classic dish so near and dear to our hearts, I called my mom and asked her opinion. Her response: “Sure! I don’t see why not.”

And that was when I realized food authenticity and purists are overrated. Our Vietnamese mothers would never turn up their nose and dismiss an ingredient that is available to them, just because it isn’t considered “authentic” to the original dish. NO. The force behind our survival after many centuries of war, poverty, and colonialism, is our adaptability  to whatever resources we have on hands. That is the only authenticity I need to worry about.

So let’s gather under the squash vines, and I’ll show you how to make this very classic but slightly altered version of “Canh Hẹ,” while I tell you a story.