The Gentle Authority of Saeng Douangdara
In The Lao Kitchen, recipes become a vehicle for history, identity, and diasporic pride.
Saeng Douangdara has a way with storytelling, imbued with a kind of modest sagacity that locks you in and leaves you at once wiser and kinder. Almost like that high school teacher, presumably everyone’s favorite, who could make even the most dreary topic a thing of wonder. Except in Douangdara’s case, the subject of his work is quite the opposite — the varicolored world of Lao cuisine with flavors, textures, and combinations far beyond the domain of the Western palate. Among the joys of his recipes, he expertly weaves in prickly bits of historical knowledge, like the lasting impact of the Vietnam War on Laos, which his family experienced firsthand.
He spent the last half-decade or so unwavering in his mission to bring Lao food to the masses through social media. Now that work has become a gorgeous cookbook, The Lao Kitchen, which, aside from developing and writing, he has also styled and photographed himself. Here, Douangdara tells us all about the legacy he hopes his work will leave behind and the one food that makes even his spirited palate a little queasy.
