"That One Dish" Spotlight, No. 3: Yia Vang

A conversation with the owner and chef at Union Hmong Kitchen about Hmong cuisine's nomadic history and his favorite childhood road trip snack

***Hi friends, just as a heads up: there will be no TOD dispatch next week—hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! 💕

The That One Dish Spotlight is a column that connects us with amazing AAPI writers, artists, chefs, and entrepreneurs who talk about the “one dish” that best captures their experiences living at the intersection of one or multiple cultures. Everyone’s got “that one dish” that provokes a certain emotion, becomes a staple they lean on in the ups and downs of life, or immediately transports them to a formative time, Anton Ego-style. Our personal experiences continue to show how food and the five senses involved with making and enjoying it evoke vivid memories that serve as links to the past. You can check out TOD’s archive of past interviews here.

The story of the Hmong’s arrival in Minnesota begins almost 50 years ago when the United States recruited them to fight in Laos as allies during the Vietnam War. For the longest time, the Hmong had already been living in the mountainous regions of Southeast Asia after having fled China in the 1800s. Following the United States’ withdrawal from the war in 1973, the Hmong faced retaliation from the communist forces and fled as a result—spending time in refugee camps in Thailand before eventually moving to the United States, Canada, and other parts of the world. Hmong refugees admitted to the United States were resettled by church organizations (many of which were based in Minnesota) and from the 70s through the mid-2000s, waves of Hmong refugees continued to move and settle with their friends and families. Now, Minnesota is home to the largest urban population of Hmong in the country—and the Twin Cities only continue to be enriched by their traditions and culture. The Hmong’s history is rich with narratives of strength and perseverance, of maintaining their cultural identity even when they were migrants without a country of their own to call home. History lesson aside, I’m really excited for today’s edition of “That One Dish,” as we’ll be chatting with a chef who’s made it his mission to celebrate the Hmong’s legacy and tell their stories through food. 

Everyone, meet Yia Vang. He’s the owner and chef at Union Hmong Kitchen, a pop-up restaurant based in Minneapolis that dishes out Hmong favorites ike purple sticky rice and a variety of locally-sourced barbecued meats (think crispy chicken legs, Hmong sausage, sweet Tamari-glazed pork belly)—all served with the beloved kua txob, a hot pepper sauce with a deliciously bright, punchy kick. He’s set to open Vinai (named after the refugee camp where he was born), in St. Paul in the spring of 2024, his first brick-and-mortar restaurant that celebrates “the past, present, and future of Hmong cooking.”

Though the food the Hmong ate was, indeed, influenced by the flavors of the Southeast Asian countries they passed through (i.e. Laos, Thailand, Vietnam), I’ve come to learn that there’s more to it than that. Deeply intertwined into Hmong food is a deeper story about a stateless, nomadic community’s resilience—an ability to adapt to whatever new environment they come across, to find resourceful ways to feed their families with whatever produce or animals are available to them, and to create a home for themselves even when others have tried to take it away. To Yia, Hmong food isn’t necessarily a “cuisine,” nor are there specific ingredients or even dishes that you point to and go, “Yes, that’s Hmong” or, “No, that’s not Hmong.” Rather, it’s a way of thinking about food and what the process of making it culturally represents. Everything about grilling steaks over an open fire you made with your two hands, assembling a makeshift steamer for sticky rice, preserving the mustard greens you grew yourself, or even frying enough egg rolls to feed an entire village reflects the Hmong’s history of sticking together and continuously changing, adapting to wherever they end up—like “a buoy in the middle of the ocean getting pushed around,” as Yia once said in an interview with Resy.

Yia’s work continues to be driven by his mission to empower his people and honor the decades-long journey of the previous generation. When he’s not working on his restaurants, Yia hosts Hmong-lish, a podcast about the intersection between Hmong and American cultures. He’s also the host of the Outdoor Channel’s “Feral”, a TV show on chasing, harvesting, cooking, and eating the invasive species of the world; season 2 is set to premiere next month. Read on for our conversation about Hmong food’s rich nomadic history, as well as his one dish that carries childhood memories of road trips and fishing excursions.

You’re doing all sorts of things right now. If it’s not exploring the intersection of Hmong and American culture on your podcast, Hmong-lish, you’re honoring Hmong food at your restaurants, not to mention hosting a show on the Outdoor channel where you showcase the Hmong way of hunting and cooking. How do all of these things—the show, the podcast, the restaurants—all inform each other? 

With everything we’ve been able to be a part of, I always have to ask myself: how does this further the vision of what we’re trying to do? Our restaurant group, Hilltribe, represents not just our culture, but Mom and Dad’s legacy—and that legacy is about the gathering of the broken people. Hmong refugees came to America and nobody knew why they were here. Nobody knew about the war, but it’s because of it we came in as broken people. My mother used to say to us, “My dream for my children is not just that you lead in our community, but what if you can lead in the world?” It was her way of saying that we’re broken people and that we understand, in our brokenness, that we can start healing if we gather together. What if healing became the process of leading, not just in the Hmong community, but in the country? And using broken people to lead and call for other broken people to come in and be part of it? That’s community-building. 

So, it started with our food, right? Creating this restaurant. Then that food led to stories. We always talk about how every dish has a narrative. The narrative of our food and other dishes we make points back to my mom and dad and shows us our Hmong traditions and culture. I get to put together a podcast like “Hmonglish.” Then be part of a show like “Feral” where I get to travel the country, go hunting with all these guides from all different walks of life. Then we get to gather together and cook the food in some kind of traditional Hmong way. 

Don’t get me wrong, the show “Feral” is amazing. The show itself is entertaining, a little goofy and fun. But there’s a seriousness about how we can show that food is the ultimate universal language used to bring people together. In season two, I get to go back to my little hometown in Wisconsin where I graduated high school. 20-some years after I left, I’ll get to go back to that area and go pheasant-hunting. It’s a very surreal moment. If you would’ve told 15-year old Yia, “One day, buddy, in 20-some years you’re gonna come back with a national TV crew and make this incredible TV show where you can feature your people, that kid would’ve been, like, “Nah man, I don’t want people to know I’m Hmong.” 

You once mentioned that “Hmong food isn’t so much about the produce or the product as it is the process. Hmong food isn’t a type of food, it’s a philosophy of food.” Can you clarify what that means? 

It’s the philosophy that, for Hmong people, we can use the living world around us to create dishes that nourish our body and unite our community. Think about it. There are Hmong people that live out in Bozeman, Montana; there’s maybe a hundred of them. But you’re telling me that the products and produce of Bozeman, Montana are exactly like the products and produce of the mountains of Laos? Absolutely not. So, what do they do? Do they just go, “Oh well, we can’t make it work, so it’s whatever?” No. If you look at the history of our people, it’s always been about how do we survive? How do we move forward? Hmong food is made by Hmong people. We are influenced by the world around us; it’s a living world. No matter where we go, where others have said, “That land can’t be farmed—the soil is bad, nothing grows there,” our people have been able to say, “We’ll do it, we’ll see what we can do.” Then we take whatever we grow from that land and use it. There’s still base flavors, but it’s all about how do we use that? How do we transform this? It’s all about bringing food to the table. No matter where we go, our people survive because the story lives in us. Our history lives in us. There’s nobody on it that can stop us, even where we get a lot of pushback. The word “Hmong” literally translates to “free,” which means “people of the free.” That means there are no boundaries or borders that hold us. We can survive in any situation, and that’s what makes Hmong food different. 

You mentioned that Hmong food is so much about making use of your surroundings. But if Hmong food in Montana is different than it is in, say, Minnesota or back in Laos, how do we look at Hmong food and know that that is or isn’t Hmong food—especially if it shows up so differently around the world? 

It’s because of our connective story. I’ll talk to Hmong friends out in Fresno, California, and—let’s be honest—their growing season is different than that of Minneapolis, Minnesota. They can grow all year, but here we can only do that for maybe four months. As a result, how we preserve, pickle, and ferment our food so that we can stretch out that produce will be different from how they do it. They can get more fresh, ready-to-eat food—which is amazing. But are they more Hmong because they can get stuff more fresh? Or are we less Hmong because I can't always get Thai basil fresh from our gardens? What I can do with the Thai basil is I can turn it into a pesto and then use that. But does that make me less Hmong? No. Do you know what makes me Hmong? The sheer history. My father fought in this war in Northern Laos for the Americans. So did my friend’s father. For us, our grandfathers never made it to America. We share that story. But just because he eats his Thai basil fresh from the garden and I make mine into a pesto that we toss into a Thai chicken basil dish, does that make any one of us less or more Hmong? No. We connect because of our history. So, that's what I mean when I say that the food changes in the areas that they do because we had to survive. We had to figure out how to make things work. We are fully because of our story, and we are fully because of our heritage. 

Is it true that you never initially wanted to go into cooking? 

Absolutely. I initially wanted to go into ministry and work with nonprofits and churches. I grew up in a Hmong church, so it made the most sense to me. I didn’t want to become a cook because, in our culture, a cook is considered a low-end job. You also have to remember that, in our community, everybody knows how to cook. So, why would you want to make that into a job? In our culture, especially where our parents came from, it’s a dream to have a job where you sit in an office and there’s no manual labor. That’s what my father would say to me. “We wanted to get to this country and have freedom so that my sons and daughters will never know what it’s like to have an achy knee, a hurt back, or a bum shoulder. I don’t want you to be like me. I don’t know anything. I’m building homes, I’m working as a carpenter and a welder. I had to do all those jobs. I break my body so that you never have to break yours.” That’s the thing about my parents. It’s hard for me not to wrap my head around my father saying to me, “I beat my body. I take on all this pain so you don’t ever have to do this.” So I said, “Yeah, I’m not gonna do it. I’m not gonna be a cook.” 

But you know, what’s really interesting is that we run from who we are—and life’s like a circle in that we just run right back to it. For me, the days when I feel the closest to my dad are when my body aches, my shoulders are tired, my feet are hurting, my hands are sore. Yesterday, I lay in bed at eight o’clock and my body was just spent. I feel the closest to him in those moments because I want to be exactly like him. That’s why I love what I do. We get to feed people and host them every day. That’s also when I feel closer to my mom. 

What is the past, present, and future of Hmong cooking? 

The past is understanding our traditions and culture, then really digging deep into why we're doing the things that we're doing. Our present is asking ourselves, what can we do now? What do we choose to do now with this generation that will leave a mark? And we know that one day our sacrifices will then be the future. That, to me, is so Hmong. It is in our core DNA of who we are, because that's what our people have had to do for thousands and thousands of years. 

What's one dish that captures who you are as a Hmong-American? Something that best encompasses your life, your experiences, your existence—without thinking of what's authentic, what dish is the most "you?"

My dad makes this beef jerky. It’s a very lean cut of beef marinated with lemongrass, ginger, garlic, and fish sauce, and you cook it until it becomes dry and crumbly. Then you mix the beef with some chili flakes, grab some sticky rice and scoop it up—the sticky rice helps pick up all those little bits and pieces—then pop it in your mouth. It’s something we packed up when we were on a road trip or when we went fishing. It’s one of my favorite dishes. There’s no sexy name for it, but it represents our people in that it’s something every Hmong person knows. It’s also the best beer dish; the beef itself has some heat in it, so having it with a Pilsner … man, it is so good. 

Any specific memories attached to it? 

Those road trips and fishing trips. Our parents didn’t believe in stopping at McDonald’s when we were on road trips. If we did stop at gas stations, it was literally just for gas. We didn’t get to go into any of the convenience stores. I think that’s why now, as an adult, when I go on road trips, I don’t care what gas station we stop at, I’m always going in and getting something even if I’m not hungry. I’m trying to make up for my childhood! Then there’s the fishing trips. We’d go out on a Saturday and were there from eight o’clock until three or four. Our snack was a little bag of sticky rice and some of this dried beef.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.