To vary their diets, Vietnamese cooks have devised some ingenious ways to transform rice into other versatile shapes. Consider the rice noodle, the slippery, infinitely adaptable food, is a mainstay of daily dining. Simmered in soup, stir-fried with coconut milk and vegetables, tossed with lemongrass beef or grilled port, or tucked inside goi kun, Vietnam’s beloved salad rolls. Markets here abound in rice noodles, fresh and dried, skinny and thick, and many of these noodles are still made by hand in small, family run enterprises. The dough for rice noodles begins with ground, raw rice mixed with water. This thick mixture is placed in a sack to drain for several hours and pressed with a weight to expel more moisture. Then the dough is removed from the sack and boiled for about half an hour until partially cooked. Next, the dough is fed repeatedly through a device that cuts and kneads it, almost like kneading bread dough. When the texture is right, workers use a decidedly low-tech method for extruding the vermicelli-like noodles into boiling water. The cooked and rinsed noodles, snow-white and pliable, are ready for distribution to market.