With 'Hawker Fare,' Chef James Syhabout Shares Laotian Food He Grew Up With
When he started writing the cookbook, chef James Syhabout went to his ancestral homeland, Laos, to sample the food. Now, he hopes to introduce more people to the cuisine.
When chef James Syhabout set out to write his new cookbook, Hawker Fare: Stories & Recipes from a Refugee Chef's Isan Thai & Lao Roots, he sampled a recipe that is not on most American dinner tables: Fire ant salad.
It's a traditional Lao dish that he ate in his mother's home village. The ants nest in mango trees, and little children are sent into the tree to harvest the ants and their eggs.
"We got this salad, came to the table and there's like
