Larb

Laos School.

When I was 14 years old, and in an English class, my teacher asked us, “What is the most important thing in your life?” Most of my classmates answered the teacher with money and house. For me, I answered, “Food is important to my life.’’ At the time, I felt nervous with this answer because my classmates may have thought that I am a fat girl that loves to eat. Now, I feel confident when answering that word because food is the most important for human life. We absorb food to maintain our life and growth. Yet, food can also identify a person, their actions, and cultural. These are the things that can identify a person. For me, I love to eat Laos food and have been eating it as long as I can remember because I grew up there and been living in Laos for my whole life. However, you can tell I am Laos because what I eat makes who I am, so you can identify my personality by what I eat. However, my favorite food in the entire world is Larb, one of the spicy and delicious foods in the country. I am sure everyone in my country loves this dish, especially me when I eat this dish. It just makes me feel happy and think of the feeling when I had this meal with my family and friends.

Laos Larb has been the people’s favorite food for a long time, we use this dish at parties. Mostly on every wedding day, we serve on the tables for guests. Laotians also often use the dish for celebration. it is street food that people in Laos can cook and sell them because this food is famous in the country and everybody who visits the country wants to try it and this makes Laotian people can make money from selling Larb. This food can be easy to find in Laos, it is in every Laos restaurant, but to find Larb in the United States is a little bit hard and it’s not tasty like the originals Laotian makes in Laos. For me, I like to eat Larb at home with my family because I think It gives me the same taste that I used to eat in Laos.

Laos street food

Preparing Larb is not easy because we need many ingredients. The first step is the protein that you need to make Larb which is beef, duck, fish, pork, and chicken, all these kinds of meat can be used to makes Larb. Each one of the meats gives a different flavor, also another important ingredient to makes the food delicious is onions, lemongrass, mint and many more herbs. These are the most important ingredients that make the food smell full of herbs because all those pungent combines savory flavor with fresh herbs and everything together is just making it perfect. Therefore, the most important part of making Larb is the fish sauce. The sauce is mixed with dried ground chili peppers and fresh peppers to give it some color and heat. The fish sauce will indicate if the larb is going to be delicious or not because after this we will mix everything together. Yet, only people who know how to cook this meal can make them delicious.
The way my mom eats Larb is unique because she eats exactly like the traditional people ate. When my mom eats Larb, she will put Larb in the salad and mix all the vegetables and roll everything together because there are many vegetables and herbs in this Laotian dish. I eat Larb is very simple and different from other people because all I eat is meat. Yes, I said “meat” after all I explain how many vegetables are mixed in this dish. I don’t like to eat them with vegetable or herbs. However, every time when I had this meal, I will always remove everything from the meat, especially onions is the first thing that I removed because I don’t like to eat onions in any kind of food. So, after that I removed vegetable and herbs.

Larb

The way I eat gives a different taste for me. After I removed all the herbs and vegetables, so there's only left with the smell and meat, but I love everything about it, it gives me a different taste from the original Larb and it was the taste that I really like when it comes to food. Whenever I eat it, a little bit of the herb smell is just perfect for me because it’s not strong like the original one that have a lot of herbs. I know the way I eat make people think that I am picky about food, but everyone has their own way to eat and I love the way I eat, and I will continue to eat this way.

In fact, I occasionally eat larb in the morning, and I once sent a picture of it to my friend. "It is too early for you to eat spicy in the morning Mely" My friend said. "Nothing is too early for me to eat" I answered. I know this kind of dish is spicy for those who does not eat spicy, but for me, it’s normal to eat spicy in the morning or any time of the day. when my mom cooks at home for the family, she will make everything very spicy because she loves spicy Larb and everyone in the family can eat spicy. I love how spicy food makes me feel awake and ready to start my day. I love how the Larb gives me the connections to my family and friend because while we were eating, there are many of good memories in there for me to remember, we all were happy and laughing together. All the family members sat together in the big table and everyone around me is the people I grew up with and the people I love. At the same time, while we all waited for the food to be served in the table, everyone was so excited to eat Larb. In the middle of the table there’s a sticky rice that still very hot. Yet, each one of us hand is held sticky rice and get ready to eat Larb. When everything served on the table, we all prayers together and I love the memories when I look around, I can see the steam of the food rise in air on the table and fill with the smiles of my family. Every moment sitting at the table with the smell of the food and feeling the burn in my mouth from the spicy food just makes me keep that feeling in my mind forever and remind me every time whenever I have this meal.

Family

My family had a celebration party for me on the day I graduated from high school by cooked a lot of Laos foods and my mom invited many people over to join our family at home for my graduation party.
"Do you like your mom food?" My aunt asked me
"Of course!" I answered
"Do you know how to cook like your mom?" My aunt asked
"No." I answered
"Oh, that’s weird." My aunt said with the face looking at me disappointed.

Since my mom can cook really good and everyone loves her food, but I can’t cook anything and everybody keeps asking me why I can’t cook like her. So, I know that may be difficult to understand, but I do feel bad that I can’t be able to cook like my mom. I know in the future there will be nobody able to continue to make this food and pass it to other people in the future, if I don’t know how to do it. Larb is mean so much for the family culture and this is not only a normal dish for Laotian, it is a food that makes other people to respect me and my family. Yet, in my culture, every daughter of each family needs to learn how to cook and should be able to cook for the family and help other people in the family cook, whenever there’s a traditional celebration. For me, I don’t know how to cook compared to other daughters of the same age as me because most of them know how to cook very well and I think, for me, I probably need more time than other people to learn how to cook.

Therefore, now I live in the United States and its seems like I live in the different word from my Laotian family and they all may think that I change to eat other cultural food, but actually, I still eat the same way I used to be, but I did change the way I eat a little and add some other culture food to my daily life. It is normal for people to change when moving to another country and I change myself to adapt to a new place. But in deep of my mind, I still love my cultural food the most. The connection and the feeling I used to had when I spent time with my family in Laos is still the same every time when I have Larb because Larb is a part of my life and gives me many of memories with my family and friends, I ate them because the food is delicious, but it’s more than just delicious meal, its makes me happy, joyful and makes me enjoy the food with the people around me.