School's in at the Red Bridge - By Sandy McPhie

Sandy McPhie discovers the secrets of Vietnamese cooking.

The market is bustling: stalls piled high with colourful fruits and vegetables, dried fish, dried beans, coffee, spices - and not a plastic package in site. Everything is displayed in woven baskets or on banana leaves. It's all so fresh, except for the dried fish, which is a little on the nose.

We're in the centre of the old city of Hoi An in central Vietnam , being shown around the market as an introduction to an afternoon cooking course. Our guide, Vinh, wants to teach us a bit about the ingredients. It's a bit like being on a school excursion as seven of us trail after him.

"What's this?" he asks, holding up a tiny brown bulb.

"Onion?" suggests an Australian. "Shallot," offers a Frenchman, sounding more confident.

Grinning, Vinh crushes several bulbs and hands them around. The smell is pungent. "Garlic," an Englishman ventures.

Turns out they're all a bit right. It's a cross between onion and garlic and according to Vinh a couple of cloves chased down by some rice wine will cure a cold in hours. Having sampled Vietnamese rice wine, I suspect it would actually knock you out for a few days, giving the cold time to run its course, but I don't argue.

The tour continues, with Vinh pointing out more exotic produce: Chinese apples and pears, persimmons, dragon fruit, green oranges, custard apples and betel nuts, the latter being enthusiastically chewed by old ladies with red-stained teeth.

He holds up a bottle of pale, golden liquid. "Vietnamese fish sauce," he tells us. "Much lighter in colour, smell and taste than Thai fish sauce - we wouldn't cook with that."

Seems there are quite a few things the Vietnamese don't think much of, including their neighbours, the Chinese. "Know why we call these Chinese mushrooms?" Vinh asks, holding up a shrivelled fungus.

"Because they're from China ?" someone ventures.

"No, not from China . It's because they're ugly!" Vinh chuckles. "We also call them cat's ear mushrooms." Not very flattering to cats, either.

Further on we come to the utensils stalls, and a surprise eco-lesson. There are two types of chopsticks available, but we're advised to buy only the bamboo ones. The others are made from old-growth hardwood and buying them will contribute to the destruction of Vietnam 's forests. Similarly, we should avoid the marble mortar and pestles as the marble comes from the nearby Marble Mountain , which is being destroyed by mining. Vinh, like many of the young Vietnamese we've met, is keen to protect the environment.

As we pass through the riverside fish market and skirt the meat stalls, I'm relieved that our shopping has been done for us. Watching an old lady enthusiastically dismembering a chicken with a cleaver reminds me that I quite like supermarkets and packaged meat.

From the market, it's a short stroll to the wharf. A small punt is waiting to take us down river to the Red Cafe, where we'll be cooking. The 15-minute boat ride is delightful. It's late afternoon and the lowering sun casts a golden glow over the wide, still river. Old fishermen gather nets into small boats, white ducks scoot across the water to gather in pens on the shore, and water buffalo gaze peacefully at us from rice paddies.

As the boatman guides us into shore, we spot our destination, a picturesque red wharf leading to a palm-dotted lawn and a modern, open-air restaurant. In the gardens beside the restaurant we're introduced to Hai, who runs the cooking school, along with several cafes. He has the cosmopolitan look of a man at home anywhere in the world, and a belly that suggests a passion for food.

Before we begin cooking, we're given a tour of the herb garden. There's lemongrass, basil, ginger and turmeric, interspersed with cassava, mulberry canes, morning glory (a favourite green for steaming), betel nuts and coconut palms.

"In Vietnam ," Hai tells us, "we eat everything except hair and shit." I think I'd rather not have known that.

Still, all the food set out on the riverside deck where we are to cook looks reasonably familiar. No bugs, chicken's feet or dog steaks.

We're handed recipe sheets as we take our seats in a semi-circle around the cooking demonstration. Hai talks us through each step as his chefs whisk up warm squid salad and stuffed eggplant. It doesn't look too difficult until they get to the fresh rice-paper rolls. This is my favourite Vietnamese starter, but I'd never stopped to wonder how the rice paper is made.

"You can buy these," says Hai, waving a packet of dried rice-paper wrappers at us. "But they're no good. Better to make your own."

With that he shoos us to a row of portable gas burners. The chefs have made up the batter for us - basically rice flour and water - and set up pots of boiling water covered with fine, stretched cotton. All we have to do is ladle the batter over the cotton to make a thin, round pancake. "Easy," says Hai.

Easy for some, maybe. With a little help, I make a slightly lumpy, almost-round pancake, which I leave to steam for the required minute. Then the real fun begins. Using a bamboo stick, we have to lift the rice paper off the cotton and place it flat on a plate. Five minutes latter, most of us are still struggling. I guess it gets easier with practice, but I'm glad we're making only one each.

Once we've filled our rice paper with fresh shrimps, shredded pork, mint leaves, finely sliced vegetables and vermicelli, we roll them up and leave the chefs to chop our misshapen creations into bite-sized delicacies. As we'll later be eating what we've cooked, I can only hope they'll taste better than they look.

Hai has a new challenge for us: Hoi An pancakes (bahn xeo). Again the batter has been prepared for us, and again the tricky bit is the cooking. At least the small frypan looks familiar, but cooking over the intense heat favoured by Vietnamese cooks is something of a challenge.

"Lift the pan if you think it's getting too hot," Hai advises as we pour our batter over cooked shrimps and pork strips and scatter bean sprouts on top.

I'm so nervous of burning my pancake it scarcely cooks. Others are less cautious and before long I smell burning. Hai doesn't look impressed with any of our efforts.

"Take it off," he barks at the English couple, who fold their blackened pancake in half and scrape it onto a plate.

"More heat," he tells me, taking the pan from my hand and plonking it back on the gas.

The final part of the course is a lesson in food decoration, something the Vietnamese take seriously. At even the tiniest cafes, dishes are decorated with carrots and other vegetables cut into intricate shapes. This, says Hai, is something we must master before going home to cook for our friends and families.

Of course, the chefs make it look simple. With a few simple cuts, a tomato becomes a rose and a cucumber a fan. When it comes to doing it ourselves, there's a little blood loss and some disastrous results. The French couple manage a passable rose and the Aussies produce a slightly lopsided fan. At least it's recognisable, which is more than I can say for the pile of vegetable peel in front of me. "Hmm, better go home and practise," sighs Hai.

I feel I've let him down.

But overall, our efforts don't look too bad as we sit down to eat a little later. The food tastes surprisingly good, especially chased down with a well-earned Tiger beer. I have to wonder how much has been discreetly binned and replaced before being brought to the table.

Half-day cooking courses cost about $15 a person, plus tax and drinks. Red Bridge Cooking School, Thon 4, Cam Thanh, Hoi An, Vietnam . See www.visithoian.com or phone (84 510) 933 222.