These AAPI chefs are reclaiming the narrative of what Asian cuisine means

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Asian American chefs are changing the expectations around what 'authentic’ cuisine means — and are seizing the moment to cook their food their way.

Chef Yia Vang says his restaurants, Union Hmong Kitchen and Vinai in Minneapolis, are an homage to his parents, who were Hmong refugees who fled to the U.S. during the Vietnam War.“I’ve been trying to figure out how to do an elevator pitch to describe Hmong food,” said chef Yia Vang of pop-up Union Hmong Kitchen and soon-to-open brick-and-mortar Vinai in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

“I hated eating Hmong food in front of my friends because I didn't want to answer any questions. So I would only eat it when I go home or when I was with my Hmong friends, we would have it, and it would be our little secret. There was a sense of shame for me.” “It blows me away that I could start a fire, grill some meats and people would gather around and I can talk to them about how Dad taught me how to grill meat when I was 12 years old. And then I go into the story of, this is who my father is. This is what he's done. This is his legacy,” said Vang. “I think that is probably the hardest burden on me that I carry is the fact that it's on my shoulders to think about, ‘Hey, earn this. All the sacrifices he made for you? Earn this.

“When I came, there were no sushi restaurants, no Japanese restaurants, no Korean restaurants, certainly no Laos or Afghan restaurants or Burmese restaurants, none of those existed. So if you wanted something from your childhood, you had to cook it,” she recalled. “The challenge is how do I make the food relatable to people who’ve never had it, but also stay true to my roots and my family?” said Law-Yone. “How do we stay relevant in difficult times when people want hamburgers and mac and cheese and aren’t willing to try foods they aren’t familiar with?”

“I would love to see China's food being admired and thought of as instrumental to cuisine and lifestyle, the way that we think about French food or Italian food, for example. Especially in times like this, there's a large part of America in particular that has an implicit bias against Chinese cooking."

Sin immigrated from Hong Kong at 18 years old. When he opened Junzi Kitchen in 2015, he wanted to push people to think differently about Chinese food, but found that customers would still ask things like, “Why is there no pad thai on the menu?” or “There are meatballs in Chinese cooking?” He would patiently answer these questions and saw it as an opportunity to help customers walk away more educated and curious about Chinese food.

 

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