“I did cheat a little,” concedes the James Beard-nominated pastry chef and restaurateur. “It’s really hard to do it for 30 days. I was craving sweets and gummy bears.”
But that is not a slight against the soup itself. Moua describes it as herbaceous, yet not medicinal. Often seasoned with lemongrass and traditional Hmong herbs, it is delicious, she says. It tastes like home.
Awash in earth tones, Diane’s Place, Moua’s new restaurant, marries her pastry-making prowess with the comfort dishes of her Hmong heritage.
The custom of having mothers rest for the first month after labour is common throughout Asia. A Chinese tradition forbids new mums from venturing outside the house or even washing their hair for those first 30 days.
In neighbouring city Saint Paul (which, with Minneapolis, is one of the US’ Twin Cities), St John’s Hospital has been serving the Hmong chicken herb soup for at least 19 years.
We know this because kids are reliable markers of time: when Moua gave birth to her daughter Lily, who is 19, St John’s was offering it on the hospital menu. Other hospitals in the area also offer the soup to patients.
Famished after labour, Moua says it meant everything to have the soup as her very first meal. (When her son, Thomas, was born four years earlier at a different hospital, Moua remembers her then-husband had to leave her bedside to go home and make the soup.)
“I love that we’ve normalised it,” says Dr Laurel Ries, a family obstetrics provider who says about 40 per cent of her patients are Southeast Asian. “Of course we have this available. This is the food that people eat in our community.”
The diet was developed at a time when people did not have easy access to nutritious foods. And yet, says Ries, the soup has nutritional properties that help women recover and feed their babies.
The chicken contains protein needed to heal wounds, as well as iron for replacing blood loss. Rice is a great source of calories, and helps increase the supply of breastmilk. The greens provide vitamin B and a bit of fibre to help with digestion.
Ka Vang stuck to the Hmong chicken diet after giving birth to all three of her children, and supplemented it with vitamins. To prepare for the undertaking, she stocked up on herbs at Hmong markets and groceries.
“You can go to Hmongtown or Hmong Village and just say, ‘Can I get the Hmong diet chicken soup herbs?’,” says Vang. “Everyone will know what you’re talking about. In some places, it’s already bundled up for you.”
And her parents, pleased to see their daughter connect to their culture by committing to the diet, were excited to support Vang. Her dad slaughtered 45 chickens for the occasion. (Many Hmong believe you should use free-range chickens that have not been pumped with antibiotics.)
“My mom was thrilled I was taking it so seriously,” she says. “I think it brought us closer because I was willing to do it.”
And even though her husband, Brian, does not share Vang’s Hmong heritage, he also supported her by quartering the whole chickens and making the broth. Vang swears by its healing properties, but says she also did it to honour her culture.
