The story of Lao food, retold by Toronto chefs

Written By

Sandra Lau

almost 3 years ago

Sour, salty, spicy, bitter -- these are the flavour profiles of the Lao dishes that Toronto chefs Velle Snoukphonh (Lao-Licious) and Dao Chanthalansy (LAO Food Co.) grew up eating in Canada. As Pi Mai Lao (Lao New Year) approaches, Laotians everywhere are preparing for a celebration of renewal. In Canada, there's one more thing to celebrate: the start of a new chapter for Lao food.

Snoukphonh and Chanthalansy are two Lao/Canadians that have been leveraging social media to create greater awareness for their food and culture, eventually leading the two to collaborate on downtown Toronto’s first public gathering with traditional Lao food.

Laotians started arriving in Canada in the late 1970s, after American troops withdrew from Vietnam and left revolutionary forces in control of Southeast Asia. The region’s increasingly forceful communist regime and deteriorating living conditions left Vietnamese and Laotians little choice but to seek a better life elsewhere.

Between 1979 to 1982, Canada welcomed around 8,000 Laotians. Now, there are close to 25,000 Laotians in the country, mainly residing in Québec and Ontario.

When Snoukphonh and Chanthalansy’s family came to Canada as refugees, their parents’ primary focus was to stay close to the Lao/Canadian community to ensure their culture and traditions don’t get lost in the following generations.

“It was about survival,” says Snoukphonh. “Anything that was about passing on our traditions was more inward within the community. It wasn’t about going out and making it mainstream because the most important thing was to make sure our community understands what it is and what these flavours are.”

Another reason that, until now, Lao food remained mostly obscure in Canada was the fear of sacrificing authenticity to reach acceptance in early-’80s Canada, which wasn’t yet familiar with international cuisines. If shared widely, they just couldn’t be sure that authentic Lao flavours would be met with enthusiasm.

“When they did open up restaurants, it was mostly labeled as Thai food, because that was more known in the mainstream,” says Snoukphonh. “Lao people are also very particular about their flavours. They don’t want to present it in a way that doesn’t meet the standards of the community. If anything, they opened those Thai restaurants and then slowly added some Lao dishes to the menu.”

The historic ties between Thai and Lao food goes as far back as the 1800s, when Laos, formerly LanXang, was defeated in a war by Thailand, formerly Siam. After the war, parts of LanXang became divided by Siam, forcing its inhabitants to choose between leaving to LanXang or staying to become part of Isaan in Northern Thailand.

“There’s one scenario regarding food culture that I can describe,” Chanthalansy tells me. “If a cook in the Isaan region decides to make their way to central or southern parts of Thailand and makes the food they know, you now have Lao food culture being integrated into the Thai food scene, but everyone will consider it as Thai food.”

Someone like Chanthalansy, however, will always be able to tell if a dish tastes like home.

The idea of our pop-up was to push forward Lao food as the title cuisine, in that it wasn’t going to be Thai-Lao, fusion, Westernized, or anything like that.

“There’s a kind of tolerance for whether something can be called authentically Lao,” he says. “A Laotian can always tell if a dish has been influenced by Thai cultures, like Laab or Thum Mak Hoong [papaya salad]. That tolerance is a zone that tells you whether something tastes Lao.”

Dishes like Laab and papaya salad can be found in many Thai restaurants and can lean toward the sweeter side, but Lao dishes tend to be more savoury, spicy, and strong.

“It’s hard for me to describe Lao food,” Snoukphonh admits. “It’s vibrant and flavourful. You can kind of conjure what it could be, but you might not know it until you’ve tasted it. But describing it can give you that image of what it could be, so that once you’ve tasted it, you’ll understand what I mean when we use those words.”

For Snoukphonh, who lives in Hamilton and works full time, contributing to the awareness of Lao culture in Canada was mainly accomplished through social media. Since 2015, she’s been running a food Instagram featuring local eats and bits of her Lao home-cooking. By 2018, however, her feed was all about Lao food.

“The experience of sharing it on social media is that it helps people feel pride in what they’re seeing,” says Snoukphonh. “Instagram was a platform to showcase Lao food, which is difficult to describe and understand, but seeing it is different -- it doesn’t feel as ‘exotic’.”

Since then, her Instagram has become a constant stream of beautifully photographed Lao dishes, each accompanied by an explanation or history of the dish. In addition to educating her followers about the culture, social media offers a way to visually represent her family’s food.

“It’s about that presentation,” she says. “What we normally eat at home is very simple and can’t be as beautiful as what you see in food TV or magazines, but it’s a food you’re familiar with.”

By March 2019, Snoukphonh’s Instagram had gained enough momentum that her cooking could step into the real world. This was around the time when Chanthalansy, an old family friend who had been hosting pop-ups at Oxtail Pho, reached out for a Lao food collaboration.

“The idea of our pop-up was to push forward Lao food as the title cuisine, in that it wasn’t going to be Thai-Lao, fusion, Westernized, or anything like that,” says Snoukphonh. “For us, it was about which signature dishes do we think of when we think about Lao cuisine. We wanted to give people the opportunity to taste it as we have at home, and what we brought to the popup was really honouring all those flavours.”

In March 2019, Snoukphonh and Chanthalansy hosted their first popup, “Taste of the Mekong,” at Oxtail Pho. As Canada’s first Lao food pop-up event, it wasn’t easy for the two to create a menu that could adequately contain all the flavours they wanted to introduce to Toronto. In the end, they went with an 8- to 10-course menu so that diners could have as much of a full Lao experience as possible.

“The energy in the room in both seatings was electric,” Chanthalansy recalls. “It was a constant buzz of happiness. It was crazy.”

Before this pop-up, Chanthalansy had also been sharing his own Lao cooking on Instagram. In late 2019, he started Lao Supper Club and invited several of his followers at a time to try his authentic Lao dishes.

“I wanted to see if more people would be interested in Lao food. The common ‘What is Lao/Laos?’ is the most popular question when I introduce my food,” he says. “I felt that Lao people and Lao food were being unseen, invisible -- and with the knowledge ingrained in my hands, I knew I could make a change.”

After a few successful supper clubs, Chanthalansy moved his kitchen into a gallery on Dundas West, where he had planned to keep hosting guests and educating them on his traditions. Unfortunately, when the pandemic started, all his plans for the supper club got stalled and, like many others in the hospitality sector, he pivoted to a takeout model with pickup meals for customers.

Eventually, Chanthalansy’s passion and talent caught the eye of the team behind Sunny’s Chinese, another COVID-era pop-up concept that launched into MIMI Chinese in Yorkville.

It was then that Chanthalansy discovered something he didn’t even know about his family’s food traditions. While working on a Szechuan version of his Sai Oua (Lao sausages) for Sunny’s, he learned from his father that Szechuan peppercorns were, in fact, his grandfather’s favourite way to make Sai Oua. However, Chanthalansy’s father wasn’t a fan of the numbing sensation, so he removed them from his own Sai Oua recipe -- the one that Chanthalansy had been learning to make since he was a kid.

Like many Asian families, Chanthalansy and Snoukphonh didn’t receive their family recipes on paper but learned by watching their parents cook throughout their childhoods and, as adults, calling them to ask for instructions when needed.

“Whenever I feel that something’s missing in my cooking, I would give them a call and they’d walk me through the process,” Chanthalansy recalls. “Most of the time, they would ask me how it is, and I would try and remember the tastes they created. In fact, they’re really just testing me and asking, ‘are you making it the way I’m making it?’”

A casual traditional Lao meal typically involves a soup, sticky rice, a veggie, a fresh herb platter, and jeow, a spicy sauce made with a tomato, pepper, or mushroom base. Chanthalansy currently makes and sells his own bottled jeow som made with smashed chilis, herbs, seasoning, and freshly squeezed lime juice.

“That’s our salt and pepper,” he says. “One of the best things is jeow over rice. It’s like a foundation -- you have to have it, even with just rice.”

When it comes to celebrations, however, a different kind of feast is called for. For instance, during Pi Mai Lao -- a celebration of renewal -- dishes like steamed cakes and Laab (synonymous with luck and prosperity) are brought to the temple and shared with everyone.

Growing up in Woodstock, the Pi Mai Lao that Chanthalansy remembers involves a family trip to Hamilton or a larger city, where they would join other Lao families and welcome the new year.

“My recollection of Lao New Years is basically cooking and sharing food—making desserts like sweets in banana leaf and going to the temple,” he says.

For this year’s Pi Mai Lao, Chanthalansy has prepared a Lao New Year menu as part of his weekly Sunday Suppers.

The menu includes Laap Gai (Minced Chicken Salad), which is considered the national dish of Laos. Meaning “luck,” Laap is found in many Lao ceremonies, celebrations, festivals, and especially during Pi Mai Lao.

Another New Year must-have is the Khao Thom Phat (Banana Leaf Wrap), which come in many variations and are traditionally offered to monks for blessings in the new year. Chanthalansy’s is made after his mother’s favourite recipe with black sticky rice, coconut, taro, and mini bananas.

You’ll also find Chanthalansy’s famous Sai Oua sausages, made from the same recipe passed down by his father and representing one of his fondest memories as a child.

The Khaopoon Gai (Chicken Coconut Curry Noodle Soup) is a traditional dish made with a rich, creamy broth with vermicelli, fresh herbs, and chilis, just for those special celebrations.

Chanthalansy’s festive menu will, of course, include his famous Sakoo Yut Sai (Lao Tapioca Dumplings). With a mochi-like texture and sweet-and-savoury filling, he warns that this may become easily addictive.

For dessert, Chanthalansy has prepared a Khao Niew Mak Muang (Mango Coconut Sticky Rice), a traditional Lao treat that’s become a favourite amongst foodies.

Finally, whether or not it’s a Pi Mai celebration, no Lao meal can be complete without a side of jeow, which Chanthalansy describes as “not like any other sauce.” His is made with Lao chili and lime and has uses beyond Pi Mai to accompany any grilled meats, seafood, vegetables, or just over a bed of rice.

With passion like Snoukphonh’s and Chanthalansy’s, the food that Lao/Canadians grew up eating at home and the traditions that have been kept within their communities are finally being brought to light, and the future of Lao food in Canada is looking bright.

“Right now, we’re not skipping steps,” says Chanthalansy. “We’re going the long route to make a dish. Many other cultures get to this express stage where people get creative and ask, ‘how do you turn 4 hours into 4 minutes?’ and we’re just not at that stage yet. We’re still following the same processes as our parents.”

While the two are currently more focused on representing authenticity, that’s not to say they’re ignorant of issues of accessibility when it comes to technique and ingredients.

“There are certain dishes that I’ll talk about a lot with my mom, and I’ll ask her, ‘how about if we did this instead of this to make it more accessible if somebody didn’t have a certain ingredient?’,” says Snoukphonh.

Aiming to turn Lao food into something that can be enjoyed by everyone in Canada, the two are working hard to modernize Lao cooking methods without sacrificing their strong and complex flavours.

“I think that would be the next step,” says Chanthalansy. “Not completely fusion, but how we can make this faster to accommodate more people because, how is someone going to do a 4-hour cooking prep on a weekday? If we want to reach out and share our cuisine, we have to find ways to make it more accessible.”

Snoukphonh is currently creating a recipe blog to help promote Lao cooking at home, including a section of ingredients that can be easily found in Canadian stores so everyone can have an authentic taste with the right Lao ingredients.

Lao food is only beginning to show its colours in Canada, but it’s looking more promising than ever.

“It’s been 40 years since the arrival of Lao people to Canada, so we’re 40 years behind the social food scene,” says Chanthalansy. “But our future in Toronto is looking very optimistic. Lao food is gaining popularity through the willingness of people wanting to taste flavours they’ve never tried before.”

Get a taste of authentic Lao food for Pi Mai this year with Chanthalansy’s celebration meal, available on his website for delivery this Sunday. Besides ordering his carefully crafted Lao Sunday Suppers, you’ll soon be able to find him and his cooking at Milkcow Café (2651 Yonge Street) on weekdays from 6 p.m. to late. Make sure to keep a close eye on his Instagram for grand opening details.

As for Snoukphonh, who’s still busy putting together her recipe blog, you’ll find constant updates from her through her beautiful home-cooking adventures, all thoroughly documented on her Instagram.

Snoukphonh and Chanthalansy are only two of the Lao chefs that have been reviving traditions in Ontario. Join Pi Mai Lao this year by exploring all the flavours Lao/Canadians have to offer, including Laos-C-Chef, Lao Thai Restaurant, Sabai Sabai, and learn more about the community at LaoCan.

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