Explore Lao food through 95 approachable, flavor-packed recipes from the popular food content creator behind Saeng’s Kitchen. “Saeng Douangdara brings Laos to the table with recipes that are bold, soulful, and alive with memory. This book belongs on every shelf where flavor, family, and food history matter.”--Andrew Zimmern In Lao kitchens, every dish tells a story and every bite excites. The food culture of Laos has historically been preserved through oral tradition, and in this essential guide to Lao cooking, personal chef Saeng Douangdara draws on his expertise and the food knowledge passed down from his family to share the beauty and history of Lao cuisine. Discover the rich flavors of Laos through 95 recipes for dips, small plates, rice dishes, fermented foods and salads, laab, noodles, soups and stews, not-too-sweet desserts, and modern twists on traditional recipes, including: • Thum Khao Poon (Cold Vermicelli Noodle Salad) • Som Moo (Fermented Pork Sausage) • Galabao (Pork Steamed Buns) • Khanom Mantone (Steamed Cassava Cake) • and more! <The Lao Kitchen< dives into the heart of Lao foodways--often overlooked but deeply rooted in Southeast Asian traditions. Through thoughtful essays and memories connected to each recipe, Saeng tells his story as a member of the Lao diaspora, exploring his roots through food. Bold, flavorful, deeply personal, and featuring gorgeous photography from Laos and Saeng’s own kitchen, <The Lao Kitchen< is a celebration of community, the connection that food brings, and what it means to cook from the heart.

Autorentext

Saeng Douangdara; Foreword by Kulap Vilaysack

Leseprobe
Introduction

If Lao food were to be described in one word, it would be “funky.” However, if you look a little deeper, you will discover a cuisine that uses its ingredients in a way that balances all of the five basic tastes: sweetness, sourness, bitterness, savoriness, and saltiness in perfect harmony. In Lao food, palm sugar is often used to add sweetness, while limes act as a sour counterpart, offsetting the intensity and bringing life to the dish. Plants like cassia leaves introduce a subtle bitterness, and a hint of MSG boosts the savoriness of anything it touches to an astronomical level of yum. Lastly, padaek (unfiltered fish sauce), the liquid gold unique to Lao cuisine, acts as the general, providing saltiness while keeping the other tastes in line. All the tastes and elements work together to create beautifully balanced dishes that showcase the pillars of Lao cuisine: sticky rice, padaek, hot peppers, fresh herbs, and aromatics.

The bold flavor profiles and rustic cooking techniques of Lao food have made significant impacts on other cultures’ cuisines throughout history. Despite this, Lao food itself is still relatively unknown in the culinary world. Many people who claim that they have never heard of Lao food may not know that some of their favorite Asian dishes, like laab and papaya salad, actually originated in this landlocked country hidden in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Someone once told me that food has no borders, and Lao cuisine is the perfect example of the truth of this. The flavors of Laos have been expanding beyond its borders for centuries: historically throughout the northernmost part of the Kingdom of Siam (modern-day Thailand) and, more recently, across the globe as refugees fled and relocated, displaced by what we term the “American Secret War” of the 1960s and 1970s.

Laos has had a turbulent history of imperialism, colonization, and war. And for many, Lao food remained the only constant throughout. Beginning in the late

nineteenth century, Laos was a colony of France, as part of French Indochina, but briefly gained independence in the mid-1950s. Internal conflict led the country into civil war shortly thereafter, furthering the chaos and uncertainty about the country’s future. When the Vietnam War started in 1955, the conflict spilled over into neighboring countries, including Laos. Although the country officially remained neutral, this was far from the reality. The U.S. government trained the Royal Lao forces, along with fighters from ethnic minorities like the Hmong and Mien, in an effort to push back communist-backed forces and to destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which passed through Laos.

While training the Lao forces, America was also relentlessly bombing the country, with a goal of disrupting the communists’ supply chain on the Vietnam-Laos border. This campaign, known colloquially as the “American Secret War,” led to Laos becoming the most bombed country in the world per capita, with 2.5 million tons of explosive ordnance dropped, the equivalent of a planeload of bombs dropping every eight minutes, twenty-four hours a day, for a total of nine years. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, countless Lao people fled to refugee camps in neighboring Thailand in an effort to escape political persecution. Having left behind all of their material possessions and facing an uncertain future, many families, including mine, had only one way to re-create the comfort of the home they once knew: through cooking.

As refugees eventually moved out of camps and relocated to different countries, often traveling thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean, and landing in every corner of the world, they took with them the flavors and culinary experience of Lao food. It was with this displacement that we truly began to see Lao food slowly introduce itself

to the world. Many refugees opened restaurants in whatever city they ended up in, hoping to bring the comfort they found in their food to others in their new community. However, according to many long-time Lao restaurant owners, at the time people were intimidated by the boldness of Lao flavors. The food was often deemed “too funky” to enjoy, forcing restaurant owners to market the food as something else in order to make it feel like a safer option. Due to the popularity of Thai food, many Lao refugees who started restaurants sold their food under the guise of the more accepted cuisine. This gave rise to the phenomenon of the Lao/Thai restaurant, typically owned by a Lao person trying to find business success while quietly maintaining their identity. These restaurateurs tended to keep Lao options on the menu to a minimum, or only made them available to patrons ordering off the “secret menu.”

In the 2000s, after decades of establishing a foothold in the restaurant world, these same owners were finally able to begin marketing their food as Lao, emboldened by growing demand for more authentic Lao eateries that embraced the power of the funk. In re-creating delicate, often intricate foods strictly from memory without the aid of written recipes, these chefs in the Lao diaspora achieved miracles. What they have been able to accomplish for Lao food worldwide deserves every praise.

Few cookbooks exist that are dedicated to Lao food. This is in large part because food culture in Laos is traditionally passed down orally and picked up through observing. Memorized recipes typically use measurements that are by nature inconsistent: The utensil used in “a spoonful” of something could be anything from a teaspoon to a soupspoon, setting the novice up for failure from the start. The Lao immigrant kitchen is also often home to mysterious sauces stored in repurposed gallon-sized ice cream tubs and

spices in unmarked containers. To the uninitiated, these random containers may seem to exist only to cause disappointment as they never contain what they are meant to. However, the experienced cook knows how these ingredients can be transformed into drool-worthy food in feats that are nothing short of magical.

A lot of my childhood was spent watching my mae (mom) perform magic …