Stop Calling Gỏi Cuốn ‘Summer Rolls’

Among the trifecta of Vietnamese gateway foods – pho, banh mi, and gỏi cuốn — the last one can confuse people. Unlike its noodle soup and sandwich kin, gỏi cuốn has not yet found its way into the official English dictionary. Most people don’t know it by its Vietnamese name, which literally means salad (gỏi) roll (cuốn). Instead, you likely recognize rice paper-encased gỏi cuốn as “Vietnamese spring rolls” or “summer rolls”. 

Why is that? Maybe the vowel combinations make it look too complicated and unfriendly. I get that. But why are gỏi cuốn called spring or summer rolls when they’re not tied to either season? While Chinese fried spring rolls (chūn juǎn, literally “spring roll”) are associated with the Spring Festival (Lunar New Year), Vietnamese rolls are not linked to a holiday, vibe, or season. They’re a common, casual food enjoyed as a snack or light meal year-round.

Although many rice paper packages are confusingly labeled as “spring roll wrappers,” they don’t bear a resemblance to the wheat-based wrappers used for true Chinese-style spring rolls. Called bánh tráng (rice paper), the wrappers for gỏi cuốn are simply thin sheets of steamed rice-and-tapioca batter that have been dried. When you rehydrate rice paper with a little water and fill it with the elements of Viet salads (pork, shrimp, noodles, lettuce, and herbs) you’re in effect making a rolled-up salad — a salad roll. But that name sounds awkward. “Spring roll” admittedly sounds more lyrical.

What’s incomprehensible to me is “summer roll”, which I first spotted in a 1999 cookbook, Authentic Vietnamese Cooking by Corinne Trang. There wasn’t an explanation of that translation in the recipe headnote. Perhaps the name was chosen to distinguish it from Chinese spring rolls. Even stranger is “fresh spring roll,” which begs this question: Are there unfresh, tired rolls running around somewhere? 

I’ve long wished that “summer roll” would disappear. That hasn’t happened. I see it online, where it has infiltrated search engines so well that it’s the default. I see “summer roll” on menus, even ones written by Vietnamese American chefs who may not have the luxury of stewing over cultural nuances like I do. 

But cultural nuances matter. Self-determination lies at the heart of Vietnamese identity. We’ve repeatedly fought off invaders and colonizers. We fled communism to come to America. We managed to introduce dishes like pho and banh mi into the English lexicon.

Why can’t we do that with rice paper rolls? If people can say banh mi, they can also say gỏi cuốn. With an upward lilt, it’s pronounced “guy koon?”.