AUTHORS: SAMI SCRIPTER & SHENG YANG “Cooking from the Heart, The Hmong Kitchen in America” put together by Sami Scripter and Sheng Yang, is a cookbook of traditional and modernized Hmong recipes. This book is one fine example of how two different families were brought together when “Cooking from the Heart”.
Sami was a health educator at Sheng’s elementary school in Oregon, and their friendship grew after Sami gave Sheng a ride home after school. Sami was invited to stay for the afternoon meal and enjoyed a dish of Sheng’s favorite: ground pork stir fried with shredded cabbage. Since then Sami started to bring Sheng home on a regular basis, and began enjoying the taste of fish sauce, Hmong rice, and hot spicy peppers as she shared afternoon meals with Sheng’s family. Sheng was invited to live with the Scripters alongside their daughter, Emily, who is about the same age as Sheng, to improve Sheng’s English. After much debate, the Yangs finally consented and Sheng stayed with the Scripters for a year. The two families didn’t live very far from one another and Sheng was able to see her parents daily, because the Scripters reserved an area on their acreage for the Yangs to garden.
The very first dish Sheng made for the Scripters was “Papaya Salad.” However, back in the 1980’s it was very rare to find Papaya in an ordinary grocery store, so Sheng used carrots instead. Three trips had to be made to the Yangs’ house to complete the dish: one for the mortar and pestle, a second for the fish sauce, and a third for spicy red peppers. This Flavorful dish - very sour, spicy, and zesty- probably wasn’t what the Scripters were used to, but they finished it all to Sheng’s enjoyment. During this time, Sami started writing down the Hmong dishes that Sheng cooked with her at dinner so that she would know how to cook them again later. While Sheng taught Sami how to cook Hmong food, Sami taught Sheng how to make jams from the strawberries and raspberries grown in Sami’s backyard.
Sheng, the oldest sibling, followed Hmong tradition and got married at a young age. Being a Hmong daughter-in-law is very demanding and even more so when one marries from a “Hmoob Dawb” (White Hmong dialect) family into a “Hmoob Leeg” (Green Hmong dialect) family, which was the case for Sheng. Her new family eats “mob khoov” (Boiled rice) which is made by boiling the rice instead of steaming it the way Sheng was used to doing. Her father-in-law, a very challenging person to impress, especially at the dinner table, always had something to say about the meal. If a dish is made just right he would compliment it, and if a dish is made imperfectly, he would make his point known. Her father-in-law liked to eat the “mov kaub puab” (slightly crunchy sides of the boiled rice) and he also liked to drink the “kua ntxhai”(creamy rice water from cooked rice). Every time Sheng made rice in her first three months of marriage, she always had that fear of displeasing her father-in-law, just like every other “nyab” (daughter-in-law). That challenge only stood as a stepping stone for her to flourish as a better cook and to become a more open-minded person.
The cookbook represents her accomplishment as an open-minded cook, in which Sami and Sheng was able to accumulate a total of 141 recipes, to share with all the families in the world. The most traditional recipe is the “Chicken Soup for New Mothers” which consists of a variety of herbal Hmong medicines that is an important part of postpartum diet. The most modern recipe is the “Chicken Drumsticks with Hmong-Style Barbeque Sauce” because barbeque sauce is a commodity not normally found in Laos. It took about 6 years to accumulate and appropriately document all of the recipes in the book, because Hmong people don’t have a precise way of measuring things with cups or spoons but by pinch and taste. Hmongs are famous for big family gatherings, so Sami and Sheng even has a section titled “Cooking for a Crowd” which has over 15 recipes with 25-40 servings per meal. The book is significant because it is not only a cookbook, but includes summaries of traditional Hmong gatherings, an assortment of poems and stories by Hmong individuals, lists of herbal medicines used in foods, and a summary of the roles that each food category plays in Hmong culture.
Hmong women still need to know Hmong cooking to honor and preserve cultural and traditional ceremonies such as weddings, shaman journeys, New Year feasts, and funerals. Traditional Hmong cooking is an important part of Hmong culture, and modern Hmong women today and in the next generation, may be practicing traditional Hmong cooking less and it may be lost over time. Sami and Sheng’s cookbook brings hope to preserving Hmong culture by way of “Cooking from the Heart”.
If you want to buy the book or need help with their recipes, you may go to their website at www.hmongcooking.com .
No comments:
Post a Comment