What is Great Hmong Food? Minneapolis to New York, here's answer to viral question

Hmong are a stateless indigenous group originally from China that has been persecuted for centuries, including after fighting for the United States in the Vietnam War. Restaurants in Minneapolis showcasing Hmong food represent an extremely rare occurrence in American culinary arts: the emergence of a cuisine virtually unknown outside its own immigrant community, stewarded by chefs trained in Western-style restaurant kitchens.

Hmong Food Minneapolis

There are similarities between Hmong cuisine and the food of Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, all countries where Hmong lived, usually in mountainous regions, after leaving China in large numbers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Those familiar elements helped pave the way for Union Hmong Kitchen, the business Vang started as a pop-up restaurant in the late 2010s.

Now food stalls under the same name attract lines at local professional sports stadiums and the Minnesota State Fair, for dishes like banh mi "brats," purple sticky rice and galabaos, the Hmong variation on steamed buns. Their popularity is juiced by the celebrity Vang achieved as a media personality, including as the host of two television series in which he probes the intersection of Hmong and American culture with a smile that rarely rests.


Who are Hmong People?

Hmong who settled in Minnesota and elsewhere in the 1970s and '80s faced adversity, including racism. But the community's evolving story, embodied by the warm reception, is a potent example of assimilation and acceptance, said Lee Pao Xiong, the founding director of the Center for Hmong Studies at Concordia University, in St. Paul.

There were only 2,000 Hmong living in Minnesota in 1979. The number of Hmong living there has grown to some 100,000 today.

FAQs

Q1. Who are Hmong people?
A1. Hmong who settled in Minnesota and elsewhere in the 1970s and '80s faced adversity, including racism. There were only 2,000 Hmong living in Minnesota in 1979. The number of Hmong living there has grown to some 100,000 today.

Q2. How is Hmong cuisine?
A2. There are similarities between Hmong cuisine and the food of Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, all countries where Hmong lived, usually in mountainous regions, after leaving China in large numbers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.