Fall

Why do we love food so much? Obviously, it is necessary to our survival, and no one enjoys feeling hunger pains. But mere sustenance alone does not warrant hours of labor in a hot kitchen, or toiling in a field on a humid day, or treating generational family recipes like sacred treasures. Surely, our fascination and gravitation toward food goes much deeper.

If you are Hmong, most likely, you have eaten some kind of zuab hau (boiled mustard greens), nqaij npua hua (stewed pig), or nqaij qaib hau (simmered chiken), says Yia Vang, a chef in Saint Paul who has begun working with the Hmong American Farmers Association (HAFA). Yia is re-imaging Hmong cuisines with a modern and local flare. This past year, he debuted a hot dish at the Minnesota State Fair that wowed attendees. It was a riff on Hmong sausages and curry gravy topped with potatoes tatter tots, that even folks in Lake Wobegon would have considered as quintessential Minnesotan. “We care about these dishes beyond their nutritional and caloric values,” says Vang. “Foods like these continuously captivate our interests because each bite contains a story. Food tells us the story of who we are, where we come from, and where we are headed.”

Chef Vang’s dishes retell the nomadic history of the Hmong people. From their expulsion out of southern China, their migration throughout Southeast Asia, and their resettlement into countries all around the world including the United States, France and Argentina. According to Yia, Hmong dishes now reflect the many places Hmong people have called home. Along with Chef Eddie Wu, he runs Union Kitchen, a new kind of restaurant which focuses on the premise that “food is meant for more than survival. It tells us a story… poured from uncorked journeys and seasoned with aged strife.”

Yia’s own culinary journey started in Wisconsin where we was born and grew up. “When my family was looking to buy a new house, the first two things we looked at were the size of the kitchen and if there was room for a garden in the backyard,” he says. Yia describes his childhood as atypical, but he did not realize it until one afternoon at a roller rink in high school when he found himself confined to the bench as his friends whizzed by and skated circles around him. “What was I doing when all of my friends were learning to roller skate,” he thought. Then he realized all of the Saturdays he had spent with his dad learning to hold a knife, butchering whole pigs, and perfecting the spice combination for laab (a sesame and chili flavored dish). It dawn on him that he had been learning how to cook, all the while listening to his father’s stories and fond memories of life in Laos.

Yia is excited to work with HAFA because he believes that the story of each dish starts with the raw ingredients and the people who grow them. “When you harvest something like peppers that Hmong people have grown in so many places throughout the world, and for so many years, you are retracing the footsteps of giants who have grown before you!” he says. “All dishes have a story. That’s what draws us to food and I want to bring that story to life.”

Farm to cafeteria programs are skyrocketing. In 2015, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) found that 42% or 42,587 schools in the United States had a program where they were buying locally grown produce. These programs, combined with farm to school activities such as farm tours, were especially effective with pre-K students. But less frequently mentioned is the engagement of food workers in the successful roll out and maintenance of farm to school programs. Interestingly, school cafeteria workers are rarely considered change agents in the campaigns to increase healthy food access or reducing childhood obesity. In Minnesota, this came to light when Philando Castile, a cafeteria worker at the J.J. Hill Montessori Magnet School in Saint Paul, was tragically shot and killed. After his death, the students eloquently spoke about the powerful relationships they had formed with him everyday while they were getting their school lunches. “[A coworker] said that [Philando] Castile would fist-bump kids, make sure they didn’t have food they shouldn’t have and pushed the healthy stuff, too…“You’re still hungry?” she recalled him saying to them. “Well, you didn’t take any of the vegetables.”

Cafeteria workers are beacons of healthy food and culture in our society, and along with teachers, parents and local farmers, are critical components of a successful farm to school program. In late August, Pakou Hang, the Executive Director of the Hmong American Farmers Association (HAFA), led a training with cafeteria workers at the McKnight Early Childhood Family Development Center in Minneapolis– part of the Head Start program in Hennepin County, Minnesota. As part of the training, the food workers were asked to reflect on a series of questions focused on culture, family, memory and identity. They were asked to share: what is a sight, a sound or a smell that they associated with their culture; and to describe the houses they grew up in; as well as a ritual or a common practice their families engaged in. While none of the questions were directly about food, food was the centerpiece of the responses. Many of the participants spoke about how buying local fruits and vegetables was really important to them because they wanted to feed the children healthy food. One of the workers said, “I really want to serve food that reflects the ethnic heritage of the people in this building,” and another said “food brings everyone together.”

HAFA’s work with the Head Start program in Hennepin County is just the latest in the farmer organization’s efforts to increase procurement of local produce by learning institutions. Since 2014, HAFA has also been working with Ramsey County Head Start to engage its food workers, teachers and parents around eating healthy food and annually, over 250 pre-K students come to the HAFA Farm, a 155-acre incubator and research farm, to learn about soil health, good bugs and bad bugs and how food is grown (underground, above ground and on trellises). When asked why working with cafeteria workers is so important, Pakou says, “I think cafeteria workers are a lot like small farmers in this country. They are critical but invisible and under appreciated parts to the food system and as an organization that lifts up small farmers, we also lift up our food workers.”