Authentic Hmong Food - Organic + Plant Based Meal in the Mountains!! | Chiang Mai, Thailand

hey everyone hope you're having an amazing day it's mark wiens i'm in montjam which is a mountain village in chiang mai thailand it's beautiful and this is a hmong people village and they're known for their amazing farming on the side of the hill if you just look around you can just see the layers you can see the terraces of farming mostly vegetables we actually spent the night here at a lodge and the owner family the mother offered to cook us a very simple vegetable based meal hmong meal and so we're gonna go around we're gonna see some of the vegetables maybe pick some of the vegetables a little bit of the vegetables and then after that we'll do a little bit of cooking some really healthy natural very local mountain hmong food [Music] one load of napa cabbage that's going to go straight to the markets in chiang mai fresh from the farm from the mountain of montjam walking into the lettuce field and on this this is more just like slope farming but you can see across you can see across that little ravine it's more terraced farming so i wanna i wanna go see what they're harvesting over there too i can't recognize what it is uh so let's just take a quick walk over there around here they do a lot of commercial farming so a lot of these are for local markets especially since we're so close to chiang mai ah a lot of these vegetables would go directly to the markets in chiang mai and then also they do grow vegetables for for self-consumption as well and as the hill gets steeper coming down towards the ravine now you can see the terraces the steps and these are still cabbages but this view is spectacular the breeze coming through passes through maybe you're supposed to get to this farm from the other side it looks like cabbage though too [Music] actually [Music] we're back from the garden now and the family runs the guest house and then i'm not sure if this is their home or this is the kitchen of the guests i think it might be the kitchen of the guest house where they cook some of the small breakfast dishes but they don't usually offer food but we just asked them if they could could cook mom could cook okay so here she is she's just going to prepare some very simple hmong dishes using the local ingredients especially the vegetables awesome actually we're gonna go straight to go get some more vegetables first [Music] yes similar to long beans or string beans or or green beans but they kind of have a like tiger stripes on them and she's so she's so friendly and now going down maybe for another another vegetable don't lick my look at this papaya tree though such a small tree but full of fruit and now we're getting some leaves of the pumpkin yup tong the big farms that's commercial farming but then just the wild farm organic vegetables that they just grow around the house that's for their consumption that's [Applause] awesome and she's just going for the young leaves at the top the young leaves not the the big leaves wow mom she mostly speaks uh hmong language she knows all the words for hmong language but limited thai but she's so friendly and so smiley he's amazing okay back to the kitchen [Music] now she's just trimming up those vegetables peeling off the i think the outer skin that's probably pretty tough yes oh no more put that all into the boiling water so she added a little bit of oil and water to the wok then heated that then tossed in the vegetables the sprouts and then added in some salt i was just watching that cook and then she just walked in with a huge basket of vegetables with a big smile on her face so she's gonna make this too so many different vegetables going to go into this meal [Applause] she probably boiled that for about 10 minutes you can see that it's soft and she checked the stems to make sure they're soft and she's keeping that water almost like a soup maybe all there's in there is the vegetable water a bit of oil and salt [Music] [Music] me [Applause] [Music] so interesting that vegetable must take a long time to cook and maybe it has some bitterness or something to it uh because she boiled it for a while then poured out the water and then added fresh water and then put it back on the stove oh yeah in diet it's called popcorn so it must that's means bitter bitter vegetable so it must be bitter try to take out some of the bitterness she put it in a little plastic bag and i think she's gonna pound it or smash it ah okay whole peppercorns just pounded that into a coarse grind goes into the green beans and then in the green beans yeah so first she sauteed them off and then she added water and now the pepper and immediately as she puts that in that smells so good okay yes yes chili time and straight from the bush right there into the kitchen oh oh my god so those are just the green chilies and salt and she didn't really pound but she just mashed it bring out the juices look immediately juicy she ran off back into the garden to get some more ingredients with the flowers on it though yes not totally sure what she's saying but definitely something healthy medicinal and that's it she chops that into the chili's then just kind of mashes it one more time just to to bruise those i think it's a type of coriander i'm not 100 sure i gotta taste it ah but just to bruise them just to release that flavor with the chilies and salt simple but you can tell that's going to be so flavorful with those green chilies i could just smell that aroma just popping we are getting close to eating and she's dishing out the rice and one more tidbit is that in this area of northern thailand this entire region sticky rice glutinous rice is the traditional diet but for hmong people it's white rice plain normal white rice not glutinous right [Music] uh [Music] okay this is spectacular everything is plant-based everything from you can see right around surrounding here and the hmong people are really known for simple but fresh vegetable based food and so the food is often simple but then you have a chili sauce which she pounded which i can't wait to try and then the only spice that she used is pepper but everything is just so vibrant i like how she kept all of the juices that she boiled the vegetables in uh so that you get the flavor from the vegetable as well and not throw that water away and and then again this would just be a very common everyday meal in this area of this hmong village and and probably similar uh for hmong people but maybe vegetables can change depending on location geographic area i'm going to begin with the green bean soup and that cracked black pepper in there [Music] oh that's amazing she added a good amount of black pepper that's what stands out then literally there's nothing else in there but salt and the green beans the green beans are soft they're so vibrant in flavor yeah it's so simple but so tasty and you just taste the greenness the freshness the mountain [Music] mm-hmm you know already tried the chili dip and i love it that's what i have to try next yeah i can't wait to eat that just with some rice but i probably will eat it with vegetables too yeah that's like unbelievably simple but everything just right from the doorstep oh wow yeah that is extraordinary oh wow i don't know what type of coriander is that zesty and citrusy and then with those those green chilies are just bumping with flavor those are big on spice and big on flavor and then the saltiness in there and just crushed so that the juices come out that's like one of the greatest simple sausages you can possibly make oh it's tasty these are the um these are the pumpkin leaves did you try that yet oh she did cook it for a long time so it is really soft it just dissolves in your mouth you taste pumpkin though oh that's so good it's like melt-in-your-mouth leaves and stems the simplicity but the freshness is just what blows your taste buds yeah i don't think i've had pumpkin leaves like this normally it's i'm pretty sure these are pumpkin leaves not my chai normally we have a lot yeah but these are up yeah yeah put that and then mix the mix the num break the chili onto there with vegetables did you try the pot comb yet [Music] oh wow what a combination and then while the other two soups vegetables she added salt and a little bit of oil this one was just straight nothing no salt no oil just the vegetable and she did wash it once and then dry it she did what she did boil it once and then pour out the water and then add more water and boil it again maybe to get out some of the bitterness and you can see it's still quite tangly oh again this one is more simple in taste because there's no salt in it but you taste just taste to feel the texture of the leaves of those stems you taste the the greenness of it um wonderful each every each three is so different tasting oh man i could eat an unlimited supply of this it's that good put that onto the vegetable even though it's all green there's no red or anything in it it's powerfully flavorful [Music] could not ask for better home-cooked food and a better view and better love and hospitality you came over and brought more rice she's so hospitable the pumpkin leaves are so so flavorful they're so nutty and taste a soft pigment [Music] i can't get over that chili sauce oh it's the best [Music] [Music] [Applause] they are amazing mother and daughter i had no idea ney was running around getting more vegetables as we were eating and then i thought she was going to cook more but she handed out is to us to bring home that is the most gracious amazing fresh vegetables from their garden oh oh man and that smells incredible they are unbelievably gracious kind amazing people oh man that was completely unexpected micah also has a bag of green beans too that she got yeah i think i'll just go ahead and take a seat right here in the flower patch and i cannot wait to eat a bit more of this coriander it's so good it's so perfect and sweet oh i've eaten on its own like that it's sweet uh maybe it's just a wild coriander let me know if you know exactly what this is but it is unbelievably just herbal and flavorful and what a meal i'm just the freshness of everything the love and hospitality the hmong culture outstanding and just how everything all of the ingredients from right here picked right before she cooked so a huge thank you to the family um and they run in montjam in thailand in chiang mai they run a small guest house they have a number of different we stayed there but they also have some other different accommodation options uh called ban i'll have the link in the description box below but they're so so hospitable such amazing people and that hmong meal was outstanding so that's going to be it for this video i want to say big thank you for watching remember to click thumbs up and also click subscribe uh and on this channel i'm gonna be publishing more videos about especially natural food eating lots of fruits and vegetables and we're gonna be going big on spice thanks again goodbye from montjam chiang mai thailand and see you on the next video

Channel: Big On Spice - Mark Wiens

Views: 506,527

Keywords: Hmong food, Hmong, vegan food, vegetarian food, plant based food, healthy food, natural food, Thai food, Thai vegan food, Hmong vegan food, Thai vegetarian food, Thai plant based food, village, Thai village, Mon Jam, ม่อนแจ่ม, Mark Wiens, food videos, village food videos, food vlog, food documentary, plant based vlog, vegan vlog, vegan videos, vegan travel, vegetarian travel

Id: Lk3HXqYlqFI

Length: 19min 53sec (1193 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 14 2020