New Hmong Cookbook

 

Hmong farmers have introduced exotic produce to local farmers markets, including bitter melon, yard long beans and Chinese eggplant.

But non-Hmong customers often don’t know how to use the produce, observed Kong Vang, a former agriculture coordinator for Western Dairyland Community Action Agency. He worked with UW-Extension of Eau Claire County to help disadvantaged farmers market their products.

These “are not things we typically use in Western cooking,” said Nancy Coffey, coordinator of the Wisconsin Nutrition Education Program through the Altoona-based Extension office. And the language barrier can make it difficult for Hmong-speaking vendors to explain to English- speaking customers how to prepare them.

To increase the marketability of foods grown by Hmong farmers, the Extension office recently published “Hmong Cookbook.” It features specialty dishes from Hmong cooks in the Chippewa Valley.

Among the recipes are Beef Salad (Laj), which contains Chinese eggplants and yard long beans; Chicken With Cucumber and Bitter Melon; and Chicken Tofu, which uses lemongrass.

Vang, Coffey and Julie Keown-Bomar, the office’s family living educator, edited the colorfully illustrated 21-page cookbook, which represents a collaboration with several community partners over the past three years.

Twelve area contributors, including women and men of different ages and backgrounds, provided most of the 16 recipes. One non-Hmong contributor, Madison cookbook author Terese Allen, shared recipes.

Profits from cookbook sales will support Hmong businesses, entrepreneur grants and scholarships in the Chippewa Valley. This will help Hmong entrepreneurs to realize their dreams and Hmong businesses to grow, Keown-Bomar said.

Keown-Bomar listed other goals, including preserving the food heritage of the Hmong. Most culinary knowledge is passed along orally in their communities; with immigration and acculturation, they risk losing these traditions.

“There are very few Hmong cookbooks out there,” she said.

Another goal was increasing knowledge of dietary practices, she said, especially as diabetes and heart disease have soared in Hmong communities over the past 30 years.

One factor, Vang said, is in Laos the Hmong labored hard in fields and packed many calories into meals, eating a lot of starchy and deep-fried foods. They haven’t changed their dietary habits here, but they are not as physically active.

In addition, Hmong youth have adopted more of a Western style of eating, which includes sugary pop and high-fat fast foods.

The editors tried to present healthful options in dishes, he said. For example, they substituted boneless, skinless chicken breasts for a skin-on whole chicken in Curry Noodles (Khob Poon).

Vang noted many of the featured recipes are celebratory foods not eaten regularly. Rice is a staple in the Hmong diet, which also includes stewlike dishes and deep-fried foods.

Research conducted for the cookbook offered insights into the Hmong diet but more needs to be known, Keown-Bomar said.

A nutritional analysis is given for each recipe. Tanya Becker, a UW-Stout dietetics major, completed the analyses, which were reviewed by a UW-Extension specialist.

Putting orally preserved recipes onto paper was not easy. Each took a lot of time to demonstrate and edit, Vang said.

Recipe contributors prepared dishes at home or in the Extension office kitchen, watched by the editors who measured the amount of each ingredient and recorded the preparation steps.

The Hmong language does not always have equivalent English terms, Keown-Bomar said.

For example, the cookbook has a recipe for making tofu. The Hmong would refer to the stage when the soy mixture is curdled - and resembles a blossoming flower - as “taum paaj,” which means bean flower, she said.

Most of the recipe ingredients are available in grocery stores.

While observing how cooks prepared dishes, the editors asked questions about dietary habits and beliefs and changing food practices. They shared the information in the cookbook’s introduction.

They want people not only to enjoy the recipes but also to learn about the culture, Coffey said.

Mai Pang Lee and Leah Rekau, food systems and technology majors at UW-Stout, helped with the food styling and photography as a research project. They won an award at UW-Stout for their work, Keown-Bomar said.

Vang, who now runs an adult family home in Menomonie, created the graphics for the cookbook. For the cover, he incorporated figures from a traditional Hmong story cloth.

For the first printing, 1,000 copies were made. UW-Extension and UW-Stout grants helped fund the project. Vang expects Hmong communities will have “an overall great reaction to it.”

Keown-Bomar and Coffey are contacting bookstores, libraries and scholars and trying to market the cookbook through Hmong media outlets. The Hmong National Development, a nonprofit organization that works to empower Hmong communities, has ordered copies.

“This is an innovative project that we hope will benefit generations to come,” Keown-Bomar said.

- “Hmong Cookbook” costs $8 at the UW-Extension office, 227 First St. W., Altoona; or $10 to have it shipped. Call Julie Keown-Bomar or Nancy Coffey at 839-4712 for details.

 

Source:  http://www.leadertelegram.com/story-features.asp?id=BI6RTO2KGC9