Hmong food finally comes to Fair, thanks to a very excited chef Yia Vang

Jess Fleming, Pioneer Press
·4 min read

The Hmong people have been in Minnesota since 1975.

The food that the prodigious farming community grows has been all over the Minnesota State Fairgrounds for decades — but always served in someone else’s format.

Hmong Day at the Fair, featuring Hmong artists and celebrities, began informally in 2015 and has grown to a full day’s worth of activities, attracting Hmong people from around the country.

But until this year, Hmong people couldn’t find their own cuisine at the Great Minnesota Get-Together.

Chef Yia Vang, whose Union Hmong Kitchen and Vinai have been serving the food of his people to Minnesotans since 2016, and who was a finalist for a prestigious James Beard Foundation award last year, is bringing his version of Fair food to a new, permanent booth in the International Bazaar, and the chef is absolutely tickled to be there.

“The Fair has been there for more than 100 years,” Vang said. “Hmong people have been here 50 years, and this is the first year that a Hmong-owned restaurant or food stall has been in the Fair. I really think that’s a very historical moment. Our people have been (to the Fair) 50 times. Our produce and our products are used in the Fair, but this is the first time that the Hmong people can say, ‘Hey, we have a stall at the Fair.’”

The logistics of creating and running a 12-day, high-volume restaurant, though, have been eye-opening.

Thankfully, Vang’s chief of operations, chef Marshall Paulsen, is a Fair veteran.

Paulsen was at the helm of the Birchwood Cafe for more than a decade and is the brains behind the popular heirloom tomato and sweet corn BLT at the Farmer’s Union stand — which means he knows what kind of craziness Vang’s crew is in for.

The new stand, in the former Island Noodles space, has been refreshed and outfitted with Union Hmong Kitchen’s colorful, needlework-inspired logo. And as of last week, it held the 16,000 pounds of rice that Paulson calculated the crew would need to make enough of the Hmong community’s signature purple sticky rice to feed all the hungry fairgoers.

Vang, Paulsen and a couple of other workers hauled the rice into the space themselves. They had to drive it in four cars because none of their vehicles could handle the full load, and they couldn’t stack it all in the same spot, because the weight would have cracked the floor.

“Steaming the rice — that we’re still figuring out,” Vang said last week. “It’s a lot of trial and error, Marshall is R-and-D-ing a bunch of stuff.”

And despite her sweet offer, Vang won’t be having his mom bring the rice from home.

“Mom was going to make a few pots of rice to bring there,” Vang said, laughing.

In fact, family members were pinging his phone incessantly from the moment his Fair arrival was announced, offering their help and advice.

“Every one of our aunts, uncles and cousins DMed us and said, ‘This is what you should do,’” Vang said. “And we were like, ‘Yeah, it’s cool for you to do that at backyard parties, but this is on a whole different level.’”

The excitement among family and Hmong friends is fueling Vang’s desire to really bring his culture to the Fairgrounds.

“We really want to highlight and feature sticky rice,” Vang said. “And we’re very adamant about using Hmong language.”

The menu will list items in both Hmong — Mov and Nqaij — and English — rice and meat.

“A Hmong mom or grandma, you know, my parents, they don’t speak English, but they can come to our stall. We were very intentional about that.”

And despite the fact that his parents can’t handle making the volume of rice the Fair requires, they are definitely chipping in.

“They fermented 300 pounds of mustard greens for us,” Vang said. “They’re so funny about it. Some of the produce is from their garden that we’re pickling — Hmong cucumbers, banana peppers — for them, it’s their way of being involved.”

And really, everything Vang does is about honoring his family and their heritage.

“The Hmong sausage we make comes from me watching my dad make it year after year, and now it will be made, grilled, put on a stick and served at the Fair.”

He said most Fair stands are a family affair, a tidbit he’s learned in his short time being a part of the 12-day community.

“What I get really excited about, is that this is no different from any other Minnesota story. We might use lemongrass, ginger and chiles, but our story is so Minnesota.”

Besides the family aspect, the nomadic Hmong culture have been experts for centuries at making food to eat on the go.

“Hmong food is all about pack, travel, walking around and eating. That’s all about the Fair.”

Related Articles