Flavors from Home: Refugees in Kentucky Share Their Stories and Comfort Foods

by Aimee Zaring

Overview

Each year, the United States legally resettles tens of thousands of refugees who have fled their homelands. Refugees, unlike economic migrants, are forced to leave their countries of origin or are driven out by violence or persecution. As these individuals and their families struggle to adapt to a new culture, the kitchen often becomes one of the few places where they are able to return "home." Preparing native cuisine is one way they can find comfort in an unfamiliar land, retain their customs, reconnect with their past, and preserve a sense of identity.

In Flavors from Home, Aimee Zaring shares fascinating and moving stories of courage, perseverance, and self-reinvention from Kentucky's resettled refugees. Each chapter features a different person or family and includes carefully selected recipes. These traditional dishes have nourished both body and soul for people like Huong "CoCo" Tran, who fled South Vietnam in 1975 when Communist troops invaded Saigon, or Kamala Pati Subedi, who was stripped of his citizenship and forced out of Bhutan because of political and religious persecution.

Whether shared at farmers' markets, restaurants, community festivals, or simply among friends and neighbors, these native dishes contribute to the ongoing evolution of American comfort food just as the refugees themselves are redefining what it means to be American. Featuring more than forty recipes from around the globe, Flavors from Home reaches across the table to explore the universal language of food.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813169590
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	02/03/2017
Edition description:	revised edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Aimee Zaring has taught ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) to refugees and immigrants through Catholic Charities Migration and Refugee Services, Kentucky Refugee Ministries, Global LT, Inc., and Jefferson County Public Schools. Her writing has appeared in Arts Across Kentucky, Edible Louisville, New Southerner, Louisville Courier-Journal, The Rumpus, and other publications.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Introduction 1

1 Hungary: Irene Finley, 1957 9

2 Vietnam: Huong "CoCo" Tran, 1975 21

3 Iran: Azar and Ata Akrami, 1979 35

4 Myanmar (Burma): Dr. Mahn Myint Saing, 1990 47

5 Bosnia: Mirzet Mustafic, 1994 59

6 Bosnia: Zeljana Javorek, 1999 71

7 Rwanda: Nicolas Kiza, 2000 81

8 Somalia: Amina Osman, 2004 93

9 Cuba: Milagros Guzman-Gonzalez and Lázaro Hondares, 2006 103

10 Myanmar (Burma): Win Khine, 2008 113

11 Bhutan: Kamala Pati Subedi, 2008 125

12 Myanmar (Burma): Pastor Thomas Kap, 2008 139

13 Democratic Republic of the Congo: Aline Bucumi and Genevie1 Fames, 2008 147

14 Bhutan: Goma Acharya, 2009 157

15 Somalia: Abdiaziz Haji, 2009 165

16 Azerbaijan: Elmira Tonian, 2010 175

17 Iraq: Hasana Aalarkess, 2010 187

18 Iran: Baharieh Moosari Arabi, 2011 199

19 Pakistan: Dr. Gulalai Wali Khan, 2011 207

20 Myanmar (Burma): William Thang, 2011 219

21 Iraq: Zainab Kadhira Alradhee and Barrak Aijabbari, 2012 227

22 Democratic Republic of the Congo: Sarah Mbombo, 2012 237

23 Cuba: Omar Pernet Hernandez, 2012 249

Afterword 259

Acknowledgments 261

Appendix: Fast Facts about Refugees 263

Selected Bibliography 267

Index of Recipes by Country 269

General Index 271

Editorial Reviews

In Flavors from Home, Aimee Zaring has crafted not just a book of delicious recipes, but a beautiful meditation on exile, place, and cultural identity. The moving stories of these cooks and their recipes are a feast for the spirit.

Jason Howard

A unique celebration of community that's appropriate for the bookshelves of adventurous foodies—and good neighbors.

LEO Weekly

In this beautifully written and completely original book, Zaring has done much more than interview refugees and collect their recipes. Instead, she has managed to articulate what binds us all together as people hungry for good food, community, and places to call home. Flavors from Home is an important and delightful book that will make you realize that we all have much more in common than we think, will shine light on culture and history that we don't often hear about, and will make your mouth water. Delicious in every way.

Silas House

Their stories are heartbreaking, exciting, and remarkable, and they are now available in a cookbook as compelling as any work of fiction.

Arts Louisville

"Zaring should be commended for transcending language and cultural barriers to document the international language of all people — food and cooking." — Maggie Green, author of The Kentucky Fresh Cookbook

"We hope that the entire Commonwealth of Kentucky will read this book to better understand the positive changes being made by these refugees. It will appeal to everyone with a love of food and/or an interest in evolving culture." — Paul & Angela Knipple, authors of The World in a Skillet: A Food Lover's Tour of the New American South

"These short biographies are uplifting and the recipes tantalizingly appealing." — San Francisco Book Review

"Their stories are heartbreaking, exciting, and remarkable, and they are now available in a cookbook as compelling as any work of fiction." — Arts Louisville

"Through the author's entry into the kitchen and foodways of a representative cross section of our diverse refugee population, we truly are made to feel 'at home' with our new neighbors….This book plays a vital role in breaking down barriers. The universal language of food and the sharing in the breaking of bread, provide an 'in' for those unfamiliar with refugee resettlement who might be curious about all the newcomers in town but are unsure how to connect." — Sophie Maier, Immigrant Services Librarian, Louisville Free Public Library

"Food is best served with a healthy portion of love and personality. That's exactly what Aimee Zaring's scrumptious book, Flavors from Home, delivers. In addition to accessible culinary instruction on an array of global recipes, readers receive the vivid life histories of the cooks themselves. What comes through most poignantly is the resilience and hope of these cooks—people who change the place they've come to as much as they are changed by it. Cookbook? Biography? History? Personal essay? Yes. Flavors from Home is all of the above, and then some. Read it (snacks within reach!) and redefine your sense of the kitchen, and Kentucky, as refuge." — Neela Vaswani, author of You Have Given Me a Country

"In Flavors from Home, Aimee Zaring has crafted not just a book of delicious recipes, but a beautiful meditation on exile, place, and cultural identity. The moving stories of these cooks and their recipes are a feast for the spirit." — Jason Howard, author of A Few Honest Words

"In this beautifully written and completely original book, Zaring has done much more than interview refugees and collect their recipes. Instead, she has managed to articulate what binds us all together as people hungry for good food, community, and places to call home. Flavors from Home is an important and delightful book that will make you realize that we all have much more in common than we think, will shine light on culture and history that we don't often hear about, and will make your mouth water. Delicious in every way." — Silas House, author of Clay's Quilt and Eli the Good and NEH Chair of Appalachian Studies at Berea College

"A unique celebration of community that's appropriate for the bookshelves of adventurous foodies — and good neighbors." — LEO Weekly

"[ Flavors from Home] offers refugees a chance to document and share the multiple ways in which food has served them, and it introduces general readers and cooks to the idea that there can be much more to a recipe than simply another way to make a meal, demonstrating that food provides many kinds of sustenance." — Lucy Long, Digest: a journal of foodways & culture

From the Publisher

Through the author's entry into the kitchen and foodways of a representative cross section of our diverse refugee population, we truly are made to feel 'at home' with our new neighbors.This book plays a vital role in breaking down barriers. The universal language of food and the sharing in the breaking of bread, provide an 'in' for those unfamiliar with refugee resettlement who might be curious about all the newcomers in town but are unsure how to connect.

Sophie Maier

In her book, Aimee Zaring has collected interesting stories from refugees around the globe who have made Kentucky their home, as well as recipes and details of food dishes from various cultures that have simultaneously re-created a little slice of home for those who have started life anew in a foreign land and also contributed to an appreciation for diversity in Kentucky's schools and restaurant offerings. Flavors from Home includes several striking color plates of ethnic dishes and a general index.

Bowling Green Daily News

The refugees' life stories and their relationship to the food of their homelands reminded me just how intricately food is woven into our identities. Flavors from Home demonstrates the power of food to bridge the divide between people turning strangers into friends and friends into family.

Reviews with TLC

Aimee Zaring's book represents a delicious slice of a microcosm of the American melting pot.

Louisville Medicine

Zaring should be commended for transcending language and cultural barriers to document the international language of all people—food and cooking.

Maggie Green

"[Flavors from Home] offers refugees a chance to document and share the multiple ways in which food has served them, and it introduces general readers and cooks to the idea that there can be much more to a recipe than simply another way to make a meal, demonstrating that food provides many kinds of sustenance."

Digest: a journal of foodways & culture - Lucy Long

Food is best served with a healthy portion of love and personality. That's exactly what Aimee Zaring's scrumptious book, Flavors from Home, delivers. In addition to accessible culinary instruction on an array of global recipes, readers receive the vivid life histories of the cooks themselves. What comes through most poignantly is the resilience and hope of these cooks—people who change the place they've come to as much as they are changed by it. Cookbook? Biography? History? Personal essay? Yes. Flavors from Home is all of the above, and then some. Read it (snacks within reach!) and redefine your sense of the kitchen, and Kentucky, as refuge.

Neela Vaswani

These short biographies are uplifting and the recipes tantalizingly appealing.

San Francisco Book Review

We hope that the entire Commonwealth of Kentucky will read this book to better understand the positive changes being made by these refugees. It will appeal to everyone with a love of food and/or an interest in evolving culture.

Paul & Angela Knipple