Vietnamese Ice Cream Hysteria Spans Three Cultures

As a young child in America—where 87 percent of the population has ice cream in the freezer at any given time—I assumed that ice cream was an American gift to the universe. But it turns out I wasn't alone in the foolish impulse to lay claim to the world's most universal summer treat.

The Chinese, who says they invented everything, were supposedly the first to flavor shaved ice way back in 3,000 BC. But Italians like to point out that crazy Emperor Nero demanded ice be lugged down from the mountains to chill his milky fruit cocktails in 68 AD. So wasn't that truly the first ice cream?

Then, of course, America interjects, arguing that ice cream just wasn't ice cream until soda was added in 1870, or it was turned into a powder with stabilizing agents and run through an industrial machine to make Dairy Queen's soft-serve.

But, whether you choose to replace sprinkles with nerds or swap vanilla for vegemite (actually, no—that's just foul), it's safe to say that every culture and nation sees a little bit of themselves at the watery bottom of an iced dessert.

In Hanoi, Vietnam, the ice cream scene is thriving (with a steady 12.8 percent annual growth). The recently opened Pow Pow Snow, a Korean-American ice cream parlor, is an embodiment of Vietnam's growing culinary diversity, as well as the varied global interpretations of frozen desserts. Somehow, owner Kim Yong Jae has managed to squeeze three different ice cream traditions onto the same menu without inciting violence (no Bugsy Malone whipped-cream shootouts reported yet).

Traversing the cultural landscapes of Korean, American, and Vietnamese palates meant abandoning the search for some platonic ideal of Real Ice Cream. Plus, Plato and Socrates probably thought ice cream was a sin anyway.

A Korean ice cream offering, patbingsu translates to red bean paste (pat) and ice flakes (bingsu). Shaved ice lightly doused in cream and topped off with a simple trifecta of toppings—azuki red beans, rice cakes, and a variety of nut powders—is the humble beginning of modern-day patbingsu.

The dish, often expropriated on other Asian menus, is well-cemented in Korean culture. Documents from the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1897) speak of government officials sharing the icy dessert at court. Their office parties were bangin' Gangnam-style way before PSY donned Vivienne Westwood and a Rolex.

The ubiquitous salt-coated ice trolleys of the post-war 60s converted into upscale shops, and bicep muscles were finally replaced by industrial "snow machines" that produce mounds of ice cream snowflakes in seconds.

Today's bingsu variants (some don't have red bean anymore) reflect South Korea's last half-century of development. Seoul ain't so humble anymore.

Bingsu's recipe has changed too. The snowflakes are no longer just ice; milky concentrates in a variety of flavors have become popular and proceed as the current norm—matcha, coffee, and milk tea. The move marks a definitive departure from the dessert's 5,000-year-old icy Chinese heritage and Eastern traditions.

Modern Korea wouldn't be what it is without a mark or two of excess. Bingsu is, more often than not, adorned with endless layers of condensed milk, pounds of fruits, 20-grain mixed powders, scoops of gelato, mochi, more syrups, and a final dollop of azuki beans to pay respects to the past. The serving "bowl" will likely be twice the size of your head and involve several sugar highs and lows.

Korea is the Hollywood of Southeast Asia. Its fashion, drama stars, lifestyle, cuisine and its men are to be drooled over. So it's no surprise that a "bingsu fever" continues to run its course in Hanoi.

"At least five shops have opened in the last year and more are coming," Pow Pow's owner Yong Jae explains.

The craze at Pow Pow is largely fed by Vietnamese K-pop teens and K-drama mamas as curious about the milky treat—the closest many have ever gotten to real snow—as much as the eye-candy: Yong Jae was a judo, taekwondo, and MMA competitor. I guess if you are going to open a dessert shop and do it right, the aim is to indulge all the senses.

Within the past few years, foreign ice cream franchises beyond Korea have also flocked to Vietnam: Baskin-Robbins, Snowee, Swensens, Häagen-Dazs, New Zealand, Monte Rosa, and Dairy Queen.

Why? Because the Vietnamese love their ice cream, and will eat it at any time and in any weather. Ice cream shops fill up as early as at 9:30 AM, and I've personally witnessed locals eating kem—a.k.a. Vietnamese ice cream—on the back of a motorbike in winter rain. This is what the industry calls "impulse ice cream."

Nguyen Qui Duc, 57—a restaurateur, writer and well-loved witty crank in Hanoi—explains that ice cream, which was introduced by the French, wasn't always within reach.

"It was a luxury for many for a long time. I remember ice cream from nuns and catholic organizations during the [American] war. Now there's a place across the street from me, Pan Ice Cream, and around the corner there's Trang Tien, the must go place for many."

Just a few years after France left Vietnam, and the same year Duc was born, the first Vietnamese ice cream shop in Hanoi—Tràng Tiền—opened in 1958. It churned out cheap, French-style ice cream for all.

"I don't quite understand the crowd with the shouting guards. It must be good," says Duc.

Well, the fact that capital citizens are pretty patriotic and that a scoop of vanilla on a sesame cone is all but 55 cents might help explain some of it. Families of five or a group of monk boys pack onto a single motorbike, then literally drive into the shop and eat their ice cream with the engine running.

Nguyễn Hà My, 20, says that the yelling guards don't matter to the Vietnamese who just want their ice cream cheap, fast, and tasty.

"Shop owners yell at customers' faces things like 'fuck you!', 'shut up,' and some really bad words. But they still come back because the food is cheap and delicious. Tràng Tiền is the same. They yell at you when you try to buy some ice cream, and there are always a lot of customers waiting behind you," My says.

Tràng Tiền completely dominated Hanoi's market. But today, Vietnamese are starting to favor foreign brands or foreign-style Vietnamese companies.

"Tràng Tiền hasn't changed, the way they make ice cream is the same: It's that everyone else has changed. Young Vietnamese want it new and foreign," Hanoian Lanka Hoang, 21, explains.

An exemplar of that change is the high-end ice cream brand Fanny, a French-Vietnamese venture started in 1994 by French chef Jean-Marc Bruno whose mission was to raise the quality (and price) of ice cream in Vietnam.

Fanny uses higher-quality creams, making the scoops denser, and takes advantage of Vietnam's abundance of tropical fruits and spices to make unique flavors like soursop, avocado, durian, young rice, and world-famous Vietnamese coffee.

At local shops like Kem Xoi, inventive ice cream treats like vanilla scoops on top of warm sticky rice are taking on the challenge of naturalizing an ice cream tradition.

At Pow Pow Snow, Yong Jae decided to serve Fanny, the foreign-local hybrid, to appease adventurous youths and pickier palates, as well as match Hanoians' thickening wallets.

"We want to give [the] Vietnamese something new, but it always helps to keep some things consistent. Fanny ice cream isn't Tràng Tiền, but it is locally made and with local ingredients," Yong Jae explains.

When the rest of the world thinks about popular American cuisine, they think deep-fried, indulgent, overprocessed, and with insane amounts of sugar. They aren't far off. That's also just about the best way to explain America's ice cream tradition, as well as why it's so popular around the world.

Just think: The whole concept of Ben & Jerry's is to add at least three additional sweets—brownies, cookie dough, cake batter, fudge, peanut butter cups, marshmallows, candied nuts and even bacon—to a base of already-sweet ice cream.

The more the merrier.

Modern Korea's culinary excess likely learned a thing or two from its big brother, America. So Yong Jae had no issue when it came to bringing a taste of America to Hanoi. Pow Pow Snow's American-inspired portion of the menu never serves ice cream alone, except the soft-serve in Tràng Tiền's sesame cones.

The waffles are decked out with scoops of Fanny ice cream; whipped cream; locally grown strawberries, mango, and raspberries; cashew, almond, and granola chunks; mini chocolate and white chocolate chips; cookies, powdered sugar; and finally doused in caramel, condensed milk, or Hershey's syrup.

The ice cream floats are also a staple of American sugary excess. Ice cream wasn't enough, so we added colas, whipped cream, and chocolate syrups. It is definitely a foreign concept for the Vietnamese.

"Some customers asked why beer is mixed with ice cream," Yong Jae recounts.

Root beer, first translated on the menu as just beer (bia), is not a known soda in Vietnam. After a second and more detailed translation, a stream of curious locals have slurped up Pow Pow's classic A&W root beer float.

"A bunch of Vietnamese who I've talked to think the ice cream float and waffles are too sweet," says Yong Jae, "but they keep coming back, so…"

Since Communist Vietnam really began to open its doors to capitalism and foreign markets in the early 90s, its citizens have zealously tried new commodities. The urge is both a testament to their curiosity as well as to how well they learned from their consumer-culture neighbors, like Korea.

Ice cream was once just a delicacy for imperialist French elite. In 1958, it became a symbol of resistance, independence, and new Communist ideologies—scoops of Tràng Tiền for all! Today's new wave of ice cream culture, in all its tongue-melting varieties, is a reflection of Vietnam's development and globalization.

Here it is increasingly true that you are what you eat, not to mention where, when, what, with whom, and how much it cost.

At the bottom of their Korean desserts, what do they see? A new face of Vietnam, melting like Dali's Metamorphosis of Narcissus?

Vietnam isn't trying to stake a claim in inventing the wheel—or ice cream, for that matter. But for the Hanoians who enjoy the screaming guards at Tràng Tiền as much as the 50s Americana feel at Pow Pow, they don't care who the hell "invented" ice cream. Just, please, stop bickering and start scooping. Like … now.

Note: In the interest of journalistic transparency, the author wishes to disclose that she had some involvement in Pow Pow Snow's original development, but is no longer professionally involved with the shop. This article has no promotional purpose, it's just a story about ice cream trends in Hanoi.