Soup is customarily served for breakfast in Vietnam–big bowls of steaming noodle soup, with meat and any number of ingredients added at the last minute, like bean sprouts, cilantro, basil, chili peppers, lime slices, and green onions. All, of course, spiced with with plenty of fish sauce (nuoc mam), chili-garlic sauce, and/or hoisin sauce in nearby dipping dishes. It’s an unusual melange of cooked rice noodles, raw vegetables and herbs, and shaved raw meat or seafood that cooks in the broth just as it’s brought to table.

Phó, as it’s known, is now hugely popular in the United States–and people line up at the doors of Phó restaurants night and day to sit at trencher tables and feast on the soup til sweat pours down the backs of their heads. The term phó translates as “your own bowl,” since it’s one of the few meals where the food is not passed around and shared.

“Small” soups, by contrast, are served as first courses–they generally don’t have noodles; they’re served in small portions; and they’re called sup. The famous Sup Mang Tay, or Crab and Asparagus Soup is in this category–so is Sup Nam Trang, a fascinatingly complex soup of crab, shrimp, and dried white fungus (mushroomlike).

Finally, the class of soups known as Canh are generally served family style, out of one big bowl–often spooned into smaller bowls at table with rice. And they are generally light–also served as a first course to whet the appetite. These include Canh Sa Lach Soan (Watercress-Shrimp Soup), Canh Chua Tom (Hot and Sour Shrimp and Lemongrass Soup), and Canh Chua Ca (Hot and Sour Tamarind Fish Soup).