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Daniel Nguyen

@rhizome7

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@songcaidistillery • Distillation • Fermentation • Agriculture.
@roadsandkingdoms Vietnam 🇻🇳

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These are H’mong / Nùng Bánh Ngô or Corn Noodles. You can find these at a lot of the phiên chợ’s (rotational markets) in Northwest Vietnam wherever there’s a sizable H’mong population.

This is one of my favorite things to eat when I have a chance to go to a phiên chợ and one of the dishes I like sharing with people who travel with me. It’s one of the many reminders that Vietnam is not a homogenous society and that there are populations that don’t subsist of just rice and fish sauce.

The corn noodles are made by alkaline-processing corn, which is similar to nixtamalization in Latin America to create hominy/nixtamal and thus masa (the dough used to make corn tortillas and corn tortilla chips). It is served with a slightly lactic broth with a spoonfuls of crushed peanuts, fermented soybeans (đậu xị), fermented chilis, fresh cilantro, and liberal dose of MSG (note the absence of fish sauce in this part of Vietnam).

The noodles taste like corn tortillas if tortillas were made into a noodle with the texture somewhere between custard and jello.

Inevitably one begins to wonder, how did this dish come about, especially if corn is not native to Asia?

Most likely the story involves the Portuguese and Spanish traders bringing corn to Asia in the 16th-17th centuries where there had already been a long history of ash and alkaline processing technology. There is evidence that China had been using ash-processing technology since the 3rd and 4th centuries. Vietnam, though its culinary history less documented, had been using ash-processing technology on rice (bánh do as an example) and to make natural cleaning solutions. With this in mind it isn’t a far stretch to see the same technology being applied to corn as it is introduced to Asia. In fact, during this time, corn is so integrated into Asia that a mutation occurs giving rise to waxy corn (ngô nếp) which was then documented in 1908 by a USDA botanist identifying it as a new type of corn to emerge from Southwest China / Northwest Vietnam.

And corn so happens to be better suited for the rocky steep unirrigated mountains where the H’mong often reside. All this in a bowl of noodles! by @rhizome7

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25 days ago

Vietnam has two common words for rice fields.

Ruộng and nương.

They don’t simply describe different ways of growing rice.
They describe two different relationships between people, land, and power.

For thousands of years, many communities across Vietnam cultivated nương—rain-fed fields on mountain slopes, where rice depended not on canals or dikes, but on seasonal rains and generations of ecological knowledge.
Swidden agriculture is often translated as “slash-and-burn,” a phrase that conjures images of deforestation and environmental destruction. Traditionally, however, the fire was only one brief moment in a much longer cycle.
A small patch of forest would be carefully cleared and burned before rice was cultivated for just a few years. The land was then left fallow—sometimes for ten, fifteen, or even twenty years—allowing secondary forests to regenerate. As the forest returned, leaf litter accumulated, organic matter rebuilt, nutrients cycled back into the soil, and biodiversity recovered before cultivation began again.
It was this long fallow period—not the fire itself—that restored soil fertility.
Where modern intensive agriculture often relies on external inputs to maintain productivity, traditional swidden relied on time. The forest itself became the mechanism for renewing the land.
Over time, however, ruộng and nương came to represent different political landscapes as much as agricultural ones.
Irrigated paddies supported larger populations, predictable harvests, and systems of taxation that strengthened lowland states. Upland swidden communities, by contrast, were often more difficult to administer and remained culturally and politically distinct from the river deltas.

During the French colonial period, forestry regulations increasingly restricted swidden cultivation while irrigation and export-oriented rice production were actively expanded in the lowlands. After reunification, Vietnam’s push for food security and agricultural modernization transformed the country into one of the world’s largest rice exporters—an extraordinary achievement—but also encouraged permanent cultivation and further reduced the extent of traditional upland farming systems. by @rhizome7

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3 months ago

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3 months ago

It's been well over a decade since I've moved to Vietnam. I think documentation is important but I also suck at social media and I have conflicting views on internet footprint(s) but in lieu of all this AI slop and over-influencer-ification of everything, I'm going to try to post regularly on what I've experienced and learned over the course of my time here. This is also partly an exercise to database all the photos I’ve collected since 2012. As I’m doing this I stumbled across a poem I had read and written down right before I left America that I think aptly reflects the mood:  “Chia tay, mai mốt về muôn ngả Cảnh cũ, ai còn nhớ nữa không? Còn nhớ gì hơn cái nhớ nhà? Nhớ người, nhớ cảnh, nhớ cây chuối. Nhớ đình đám, nhớ ba ngày Tết Trăm nhớ, ngàn thương, nhớ, nhớ là…”

“Parting now, tomorrow we'll drift to countless roads.
These old scenes—will anyone still remember them?
What memory endures more deeply than the memory of home?
Remembering people, remembering places, remembering even the banana trees.
Remembering festivals, remembering the three days of Tết.
Hundreds of remembrances, thousands of affections—memory, memory is all there is…”

Picture 1: Me and my first motorbike in Vietnam - a Honda Airblade. This was a borrowed motorbike and the bike I learned to navigate Vietnam's traffic on. I shortly switched to a Honda Cub afterwards.
Picture 2: Picture of Saigon when I first landed in Vietnam
Picture 3: Thanh Xuan Farmers Cooperative circa 2012 - they are sadly no longer around as real estate development as changed much of land use and agriculture in an around Vietnam's metropolitan areas.
Picture 4: Rao A stream at the edge of the primary forests for the Huong Son watershed. This is where my love for Vietnam’s highlands started to manifest.
Picture 5: Making herbal bo ket shampoo. There was a time in my early years in Vietnam where I would bathe and shower entirely using herbal botanical shampoos. I’ll probably post more in depth on this later.
Picture 6: One of the early projects I worked on in the Mekong Delta around heirloom rambutan. A lot of field visits with farmers. by @rhizome7

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4 months ago

Forget New York. Is Hanoi the real city that never sleeps?

That’s the contention of pioneering distiller and researcher Daniel Nguyen (@rhizome7), who helps us navigate the city In the latest installment of our city guide series The Fix.

From morning rituals at wholesale wet markets to the holy culinary trinity of bia hơi, pho, and century-old bánh mì, Daniel guides us through a city where centuries of Sino, French, and Soviet architecture layer over an indomitable 24-7 creative energy.

Swipe for a first look at Daniel’s picks. Link in bio to join Insiders and unlock the full guide. taken in Hanoi, Vietnam by @rhizome7

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5 months ago

#vietnam #vietnameseculture #vietnameseamerican #vietnamtravel #vietnamesefood

Poetry and Prose - Episode 1 by @rhizome7

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10 months ago

#vietnam #botany #vietnamtravels Botanical oral hygiene in Vietnam. by @rhizome7

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a year ago

#vietnam #vietnamlife #vietnamtravel #motorbikevietnam yay for running out of gas. by @rhizome7

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a year ago

If you want to understand Vietnam’s present-day culinary landscape, you’d be hard pressed to find a more knowledgeable guide than Daniel Nguyen (@rhizome7), our host for Vietnam, the North: Oct 18-25, 2025.

Raised in California by Vietnamese parents, Nguyen came to the country a decade ago to work with farmers in the Mekong Delta, work that eventually led to the cofounding of @songcaidistillery, known for its collaborations with local hilltribes and for creating the first gin ever distilled in Vietnam. In a country where two-thirds of the population is rural, Nguyen’s experience with farm communities also gives him rare insight into the way Vietnamese actually eat—and live—today.

Tap the link in our bio to read our interview by R&K’s Charly Wilder (@charly_wilder) spanning Vietnamese craft food movements, what the Red River Delta has in common with Louisiana’s Gulf Coast, the culinary impact of South Korean soft power, and what travelers can expect from this fall’s trip.

📸 @jfierberg

#leagueoftravelers #roadsandkingdoms #vietnamtravel taken in Vietnam by @rhizome7

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a year ago

🇻🇳 What’s on the menu in Vietnam?

Swipe to see some of what we’re eating this fall when we explore Vietnam’s lush and fascinating north, led by two of Southeast Asia’s great culinary minds, pioneering distiller Daniel Nguyen (@rhizome7) and dishwashing ski punk turned celebrated chef, author and restaurateur Andy Ricker (@pawkhrua). From a full-throated deep dive into miraculous Hanoi to beautiful days with the hill tribes of Vietnam’s mountainous north, this is a journey like none other.

📍To join: roadsandkingdoms.com/league or the link in our bio.

📸 @jfierberg by @rhizome7

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a year ago

This is Northern Vietnam with Roads & Kingdoms, captured by Jeff Fierberg (@jfierberg). From sizzling fish in Hanoi to a Red Dzao feast in blinking, blistering technicolor good-weird Sa Pa, this trip will burst your silly little heart wide open. Or as Jeff summed it up: “bury me in bún chá”

Vietnam, the North: Oct 18-25, 2025. Hosted by @rhizome7 and @pawkhrua

📍More info at the link in our bio or hit us in the DMs. taken in Vietnam by @rhizome7

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a year ago

🇻🇳 This fall in Vietnam?

🌱 Join us for a week of ebullient insider access to the richest slice of Northern Vietnam.

It’s a journey made remarkable by our partnership with Song Cai Distillery (@songcaidistillery) and the visionary Daniel Nguyen (@rhizome7). His deep connections to the hill tribes provide us with rare insight into the beautiful life of these mountains and these people, who have built a culture in harmony with their land and their animals. And of course, they gave the world phở, and we’ll be exploring black cardamom production in its finest season. Add to that a full-throated dive into Hanoi, the gem of Southeast Asia, and you have a journey like none other.

Your cohost? The dishwashing ski punk turned celebrated chef, author and restaurateur Andy Ricker (@pawkhrua). When we tell you this will slap…

📌 To join: roadsandkingdoms.com/league or the link in our bio.

📸 @jfierberg

#leagueoftravelers #roadsandkingdoms #vietnamtravel by @rhizome7

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a year ago