Northern Vietnamese migrants similarly popularized bánh mì sandwiches along with pho.
The modern bánh mì sandwich emerged from Vietnam’s encounter with French baguettes and local ingredients. Bread arrived during French colonial rule, but Vietnamese cooks and vendors transformed it with fillings such as pork, chả lụa, pâté, cucumber, cilantro, pickled carrot, pickled daikon, chili, and mayonnaise.
The 1954 partition sent more than a million people from North Vietnam to South Vietnam. Their movement helped reshape Saigon’s food culture, and northern migrants were among the people who sold and developed filled bread sandwiches there. By the late 1950s, shops such as Hòa Mã were serving versions recognizable as modern bánh mì thịt.
Pho and bánh mì are sometimes treated as interchangeable symbols of Vietnamese food, but they are different dishes: pho is a noodle soup, while bánh mì is a bread roll or sandwich. Both later spread globally through overseas Vietnamese communities.