PHOTO ESSAY
MOTHERLAND MEALS FROM THE
Photos by James Tran
J
ames Tran is a photographer we know well here at San Diego Magazine . Readers have regularly seen his work featured in our food reviews, because, simply put, he’s one of the best in the region. Born in Virginia and raised in LA, James has been exploring the SD food scene for more than 15 years. “I studied politics and history at UCSD but ended up getting into the food business, cooking for 10 years,” he says. “I left that to become a food photographer.” James’ parents came to the US from Vietnam in 1985. His father was high-ranking in the Vietnamese Navy and spent nearly 10 years in a reeducation camp after the Vietnam War. “There’s a lot,” James says. “My family, like most Vietnamese- American families, [has] an intense backstory. I grew up with Vietnamese food and culture. But Vietnam is a home that I don’t know. My parents
never considered the US fully home, and Vietnam isn’t home, either.” Still, he felt called to go. Now 35, James recently traveled to Vietnam for the first time. Weeks later, he went back again. “The food here in the US is mostly southern Vietnamese, so going to Vietnam, I got to see the origins of all the things I grew up with," he says. "But then going to the north meant I got to see this whole other half of the country.” In total, he spent a month eating and drinking his way through the country, camera in hand. “It was like a real return to the motherland,” he says. James came back with thousands of pictures. Here are some of our favorites—the kinds of shots that induce hunger and impulsive plane ticket purchases—with commentary from James. –Mateo Hoke
“This is pretty close to the main market in Đà Lạt. Đà Lạt is at the same elevation as Denver, so almost all the coffee is grown here. You find European vegetables like cabbages, potatoes, and hydroponic white strawberries. Bougie stuff you see in California.”
60 JULY 2023
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