In My Kitchen with Paula

Where Food is the Tie that Binds: A Vietnamese Refugee's Story with Raymond Liens

• Paula Mohammed • Episode 4

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Did you ever wonder what it was like to grow up during the Vietnam War…in Vietnam?

Raymond Liens, is an exceptional home cook and host with In My Kitchen,  who grew up in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam during the Vietnamese war.  Raymond’s story may surprise you as he shares his family's story from the Mekong Delta in Vietnam to Winnipeg Canada and the role food plays throughout the experience.

In this episode you will learn about Raymond’s life growing up in the Mekong Delta. Raymond breaks down the foundation of all Vietnamese meals and provides a framework of 10 essential ingredients that will have you cooking Vietnamese dishes in no time.  Raymond shares some tips and hacks for traveling in Vietnam specifically on how to navigate the food markets of the Mekong Delta.

You are going to love this episode and if you haven’t already been to Vietnam, you will be adding it to your bucket list. 

I am excited for you to hear Raymond’s story and all he has to share!


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In My Kitchen creates connections one dish at a time, by exploring culture through food. I do this through unique culinary workshops, speaking engagements, and of course, this podcast.

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Paula Mohammed: Hi, welcome back to the show. Thanks for joining me again today. I'm interviewing In My Kitchen host Raymond Liens. Raymond is taking us on a culinary journey to the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. Super interesting episode. In this episode, what you'll hear is Raymond talking about what it was like growing up as a child in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War, not what you probably expect. 

The story of his family and parents and their journey from Vietnam to Winnipeg when they had to leave everything behind. The entrepreneurial spirit and resilience of his parents is amazing. Raymond talks about his passion for food, specifically Vietnamese cuisine, and also the composition and foundation of a Vietnamese meal: the 10 essential ingredients for Vietnamese cooking. We talk about the influences of geography on Vietnamese cuisine, the impact of being a refugee on Raymond. And what I'm really excited about is also traveling tips for Vietnam, specifically in the Mekong Delta. So let's get right to it and dive right in. 

Welcome to the show, Raymond. I'm so excited to be here today with you.

Raymond Liens: Me too. I've been looking forward to this. This is great.

Paula Mohammed: Before we get started, I just wanna give our listeners a little bit of an intro to who you are Raymond and I have known each other for about four years now because Raymond came on and joined In My Kitchen, literally right before the pandemic hit. So instead of doing his in-home culinary adventures that we had curated, Raymond wholeheartedly and enthusiastically joined me into the unknown online virtual class world.

Raymond grew up in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War and despite the instability of warfare impacting daily life, food was always in abundance. Raymond is an avid home cook who learned to cook from elders in his family and neighbors using ingredients right from the farms and local markets. Raymond left Vietnam after the war and now calls Canada home. He also had the opportunities to study and work all over North and South America, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

And Raymond, just to get us started, can you share with our listeners a little bit more about growing up in the Mekong Delta?

Raymond Liens: What I can remember from the childhood was actually lots of light, lots of greenery, lots of food, lots of... um, despite of, you know, the instability that you hear through the rumor mills and this gorilla fight, you know, warfare here and there. But, you know, the war never really reached its full battle south of Saigon.

So the war actually stopped in Saigon, right? However, in the rural part that is south of Saigon in the delta, in, the, the Mekong delta, which is basically from Saigon all the way to the point, um, it, it's considered as the rice basket, one of the two rice baskets of Vietnam: the north, near the... they call Song Hong, which is Red River and the South, which is the Mekong. And, for us, you know, living in the most fertile part of the country, we've always had food. Food were just like steps away. Ingredients were steps away. Butchers were down the street and noodle makers were across the street. Um, so, so for us, I never, felt hungry and I never really felt scared.

I never really felt, uh, like I was living in danger. And I think that's partly because we always share a meal as a family. We always go and get our food daily at the market and, and we just carry on life as it was offered to us at the time. So, I don't remember being afraid or sadness. So our life continue. If you ask my elder members of the family, including my siblings and so on, you know, they might have a different version of the story, but for a kid, you know, it was just like, okay, life goes on. You know, let's just eat.

What can we eat today? And, and I think one of the, interesting thing was, I, I don't know how this happened, but mom, um, just a brief anecdote, mom, had our last, uh, member of the family, my baby brother, a year after the war, which is nine, around 1976. And at that time I think I was barely, not even 10 years old, but I was in charge of getting groceries for the whole family.

I remember, yeah, I remember mom putting, you know, like some money into a little kerchief and you know wrap it up and say, "Take this and go see that butcher. Go see that tofu maker. Go see that curry lady. Go see..." All of whom I already know at the time, because I shop at mum all that time. And then, you know, go to a specific cyclo driver so that we can, so he could take me home.

So here I am with two baskets full of food that, that I have to lift my arm, otherwise, it'll be dragging on the floor. Put it on the cyclo and then, you know, with some flowers, of course, because I have leftover money. And then, you know, the cyclo driver would just take me home. And, that, that was my memory of the war. You know, it would just, kind of idyllic.

Paula Mohammed: And do you think your parents did a great job of sheltering you from what was happening or was that their experience too, to a certain degree?

Raymond Liens: Well, at that time, I just thought that, you know, it was normal because you know, you don't know what you know. You don't know what you don't know as a kid, right? You just know what's in front of you. Uh, in retrospect, there are instances where I see, you know, the trauma, the vulnerability that, that my family had to go through with the change of regime, change of political instability, change of everything, you know. Our life was turned upside down, but for us, um, it must have been, you know what, what they did to protect us. I never really felt like, you know, I was in danger. So I think due to a large part to what they did to normalize daily life.

Paula Mohammed: And can you share with our listeners a little bit about that journey from Canada, or sorry, from Vietnam to Canada. When did that take place?

Raymond Liens: Just to put it in perspective, let me just start with what I learned afterwards and then we go to my journey. Now I can understand clearly why we left. But at that time, I didn't. Right? But I learned this after the fact, obviously. From, because in, in the late seventies, you know, there were a lot of protests about the Vietnam War. I mean, everybody was out there, right? Jane Fonda. Eartha Kitt. I mean, all of these people were like, you know, say "Stop the war. Stop the war." But for us, living in Vietnam at the time, you know, after what they called the unification of Vietnam, which means that the northern, which Vietnam was taking over the US-backed Southern Vietnam, and um, then being ethnic Chinese. And also being part of, well, what they call bourgeoisie. We, we were comfortable, but we were not filthy, you know, rich. Uh, but it was considered as, you know, not subversive to the, to the regime. In 1977, 78, uh, Vietnam got in a kerfuffle with China. So they also want, you know, the ethnic Chinese that were there for generations, you know, we felt like the country is no longer ours because all of a sudden we became enemies of our Vietnamese neighbors, even though we weren't, we were like neighbors for generations. So that's sort of changed the tone of our sense of belonging. I remember very distinctly all of a sudden, we were the other. Right?

Paula Mohammed: Interesting.

Raymond Liens: So even with our closest friends, we became the other. And so that's when my parents saw the writing on the wall. And you know, we put all the pieces in place and escaped the country by just paying the authorities not to arrest us so we can leave. And... and so we just basically put whatever hard assets we have, uh, together and pay the authority.

And then, we left on a boat. Uh, it was a 17, 18 meter boat, I think, um, with a, uh, with 154 people on board. And, uh, two days on the sea. Uh, no, three days, two nights on the sea. And the sea was perfectly calm, was perfectly, you know, we were the lucky ones, and then we just landed in Malaysia in a refugee camp. 

And by that time, Canada has more and more pressure to help with the exodus of the Vietnamese. Canada basically just came to our refugee camp and say, okay, we're gonna interview people, and so on and so forth. And, and our family was rejected by Australia and France because we have, you know, parents were over 50, 10 kids, six were underage, and you know, we're just not desirable for a country that wanted to have immigration as a benefit, as an economic benefit.

But Canada took us on and I think it's because of the pressure from the public that we got, you know, welcomed into Canada in that scoop. And, um, we were the first plain load of refugees that came, that left Malaysia... uh, landed in Vancouver, some remained in Vancouver. We were dropped off in Winnipeg on May 10th, 1979, and then the plane went on to, to drop others off.

So that's how I landed in Winnipeg. Now the reason that I learned afterwards why we were in Winnipeg was like on my dad's immigration paper. The officials asked, you know, so what is your profession? And my dad not having English at the time, said, um, "well, I make textiles."

And that got lost in translation. So on his paper: profession, it says weaver, even though my... so, so I didn't even, I didn't even know that what that word meant at the time until, you know, later when I went to school and started learning English and I said, wait a minute, we were manufacturers of textiles. My dad was not at the loom. Right? So I think that's when I connected the dots. The reason why we were in Winnipeg was Winnipeg at the time had a very, very lively, uh, clothing manufacturing business. Hence, two weeks later, mom and dad, who had very, very little experience with manual labor, uh, went to work for minimum wage, uh, at $2 and 95 cents. And, uh, and that's how, we, we arrived in Winnipeg.

And when your parents came and arrived in Winnipeg, what did they end up doing? I mean, they came from being textile manufacturers to finding themselves in Winnipeg with a large family, cold country, . And they stayed there. Right? Your sister's still there, I understand.

Well at that time we didn't really know how we could start life, you know, resources were limited. They didn't learn English. They never learned. And so for us, we just did what we had to do. So the obvious solution at the time was, uh, we saw that there was Vietnamese ingredients in food was difficult to come by, so, we just thought, well, you know, if we saved enough money to open up a grocery store, not only that, we could eat well, but the community could also have access to the food that we've been missing.

Our first priority was actually to save enough money to pay back the government for the airfare that brought us here.

And I remember that, you know, I remember thinking, okay, they worked $2 and 95 cents an hour times two. We have to pay rent in a two bedroom apartment. There was five of us, mom and dad, so there was like two bunk beds in one room. My brother slept in the living room. Mom and dad take the other bedroom. So, that, that was life. So I was like, okay, you make due with what you have. And that was like for the first few years. And, uh, and then after we paid, saved enough money to pay back the government, which was $5,000. They gave us a grace period of one year with no, uh, interest, but then interest would, accumulate after that. So I remember we, we said, okay, after that we can do what we want, but a year after that, I don't know how it happened. And, and to this, we, we brought nothing with us. Right. I mean, nothing, just the clothes and, some family items that were important to the family but we managed to save $10,000 to open up the first store we rented.

It was a grocery store. It's a grocery store that, that specializes in Southeast Asian, uh, groceries. Now, at the time in Winnipeg, there, there weren't any. I think the only thing that Southeast Asian that we could find at the time was cilantro. Right? But in Vietnam, in Vietnamese food, I mean, we eat like half of our, half of each meal is fresh herbs. And some of them, most of them have no English names. So, or name, you know, that I had to look up Wikipedia much, much later. But at that time, we just call everything mint. We have this mint and we have that mint. We have that mint and that mint is also good with this mint.

When we opened the store, we tried to curate the store with some ingredients because we had a connection to someone through the refugee camp who has settled in Hawaii, that opened up a farm that grow all of these vegetables. And, and so we would get boxes that, um, of fresh herbs that were sent to us from Hawaii.

So we'd get a box of those sent to us. We go to the airport, we'll pick it up and, and we have a supply to sell for the week. And people just flock to our store because it's such an important part of our everyday meal.

Paula Mohammed: You once said to me, Raymond, I wanna get this quote right. You said "one refugee story is just one refugee's story". Meaning everybody's story is different. So I just wanna say thank you to you for sharing your story with our listeners. I find it fascinating, the resilience of your parents and because that store stayed open for many, many years, right?

Raymond Liens: Yeah, it stayed open for 40 years. Yeah, it opened in 1982 and my sister finally sold it in, uh, 2022.

She looked after my parents and was such an important thing for our family because then my parents have a, have a community. Right? They can just work in the store, they can talk to, you know, neighbors and friends and so on, so it became like a social outlet for our parents.

Paula Mohammed: How lucky for the community to have your store and have access to the ingredients that they would have left behind to be able continue to make those dishes from home. Is that what ignited your passion for cooking? 

Raymond Liens: Well, I think food was always, you know, culturally speaking, you know, you speak to any Asian family, you know, food is always the glue that bind. Right? It did for us. And I remember looking back, you know, when we're eating the current meal, we're already planning the next meal, right? What are we gonna have?

And, and I grew up in a family where we had, uh, in the good old days, we would have housekeepers and so on, but my grandfather has always insist that all the help would sit down and have lunch and dinner together. They would serve us. They would refill the bowls and stuff, but all of us would sit together.

My grandfather insisted on that, because, you know, it's a such an equalizer, you know, coming, when I mention this to other people later, they, you know, when I see people with housekeepers that have subject to eating by the stove in the kitchen. I just find that so strange, because that's not how I was brought up.

As a kid, I remember, I think it just made sense of curiosity or just because I've always looked for, you know, things to do and I'm, I've always been adventurous child and I think the first time that I, I cook on a open stove, I had to stand on a kitchen stool so that I could reach, right, with an extra, with an extra long handle. And here I am, you know, trying to get myself like right in there and I would be tasting the ingredients and, you know, my nanny at the time would just say, well, how do you think it tastes? What do you think? Instead of saying, putting how much in or putting whatever, she would always ask me, you know, to taste, taste every dish, every ingredient, and then until you think that it tastes, you know, correct. I remember seeing how everything measured out, it's not the way that I cook. I cook by feel. I cook by taste, and then to this day, I, kept those skills, and I applied those skills to things like, pork tenderloin, steak. I cook a mean pork tenderloin. And, that's just from, you know, just from listening to the sounds, feeling the pork tenderloin so that you know when they just pink and you know, and, and those are the kind of things that I, so like learned and then honed and perfected to my liking later on.

Paula Mohammed: We've talked in our, in your online cooking classes a lot about the composition of a typical Vietnamese meal. Can you tell us more about that, of what a typical Vietnamese meal looks like and what that is? 

Raymond Liens: So, so a typical Vietnamese meal would usually consist of a protein, which is very small, maybe about 25% of the entire meal. The other 25 would be our carbs: rice, noodles, whatever. And then half of it with the vegetables, and, uh, with the vegetables, some stir fry, but a lot of them were fresh.

So the meal is usually, a little soup, which is like very, very, uh, simple soup. Sometimes it's just, you know, egg and glass noodles. That would be all, and then some pickled cabbage. That would be our soup. And then a stir fry bitter gourd. That would be another one. And then meat would be just a few pieces.

We would never have meat as a course because meat was always an accompaniment rather than a course. Um, yeah. The fresh vegetables. You know, I mean, to this day I, when I pack my lunch, I always pack a container of fresh herbs. So the, sometimes the dill, cilantro, mint, basil, uh, and then some cucumbers.

And I would just have that as accompaniment to whatever it is that I bring to lunch. So this week I had like, uh, a three bean soup with Moroccan spices with my herbs, and, um, and then some, uh, oh yeah, the, the leftover pork tenderloin, just three slices. And that was my lunch.

Paula Mohammed: I mean, it sounds like a weird question, but literally, how do you eat the meal? Are you using the vegetables to wrap the meat in and eat it that way?

Raymond Liens: Yes, we wrap everything. We love wrapping. I'm the OG rapper. Usually it would be a leaf of lettuce and, you know, and then we put the mint on there and then we put a protein on there and then we would just like roll it up and it would just eat that. Um, and then we just have, you know, a couple of bites of rice.

Sometimes we would dip it in, in a mix, the fish sauce, the Nước chấm, sometimes we don't. Sometimes, you know, it's already seasoned enough so that you don't. Sometimes it's hoisin sauce, um, and maybe a side of chili. And so, that's how I continue to eat to this very day.

Paula Mohammed: Raymond, do you remember when we got together with the In My Kitchen hosts and Leila had done a typical traditional Iranian or Persian appetizer. This is sounding very similar. So they would, it was the herbs, the vegetables, instead of the protein, it was feta and then instead of the lettuce leaf, it was a piece of bread, but they would wrap everything and it would always have the, the herbs and the cheese wrapped in a little bit of the Persian bread and eat it that way.

Raymond Liens: Exactly. Exactly. And sometimes we use rice paper as well. Right. We use rice paper to, to do that. I actually thought of Leila this week because along with my herbs, I threw in a handful of walnuts in it because I remember having that at her, at her home. 

Yeah, and it was so good. I added walnuts to my Vietnamese herbs and you go up and, you know, was, was delicious.

Paula Mohammed: I love when, when we see, well, for me, because I cook with all of you quite often, is when I start bringing different elements into one dish. So, it's a very culturally rich dish. On this podcast, people come, I ask everyone to bring a dish that they wanna share and why they're sharing it and then we put the recipe in the notes. Now Raymond always takes it up a notch, does it a little different. So, Raymond, you are sharing with us, and I love this and I can't wait to hear about it, but basically the 10 essential ingredients for Vietnamese cooking.

Raymond Liens: Well, first of all, we would have fish sauce. Very important. We season everything with fish sauce. We use roasted white pepper which is very, very important because Vietnam is one of the countries that has the largest production of peppercorns in the world.

And they supply all over. So we use only white, because the white pepper has a purer taste of pepper because it's, it's husked. Black pepper is un husked peppercorn. So you take away the husk, you roast it until it's aromatic and then you just use it. Right? Lime is also important. Noodles, noodles of any kind, and uh vinegar. We use a lot of vinegar and we don't use fancy vinegar. We use like, you know, cheap white vinegar because we want that sharp taste but nowadays, you know, I mean, yes, if you want to incorporate other vinegars, that's fine, but traditionally that, that's what we do. We use white vinegar for many things.

At least three, four different herbs: cilantro, green onion being very important, spearmint or peppermint, and, uh, lots of diakon and carrot pickles. And these are the kind of ingredients that we would have in the fridge, and we'll use it as an accompaniment, almost like the Korean banchan that, that you have with every single meal. Right. 

And of course, soy sauce and oyster sauce too, but not as often as fish sauce because instead of using oyster sauce, which is in uh, people use, use it all over Southeast Asia. We, we sometimes use fish sauce, sometimes use oyster sauce. And rice of course.

And, uh, so, so those were basically the basic essential ingredients to make a Vietnamese meal. It's very, very simple. And when, when I travel for work, I would actually bring these ingredients with me so I could cook in the hotel.

Paula Mohammed: So going off on a tangent here, but I just wanna ask you, cause I think this is helpful for many of our listeners, what do you look for or what should we look for when we buy fish sauce? 

Raymond Liens: Yes. Now I'm a purist, right, because I'm a purist. Because fish sauce are now, they doctor it up with so many other things in there, like, you know, various types of salt and so on. So what fish sauce that I, I look for is the simplest ingredient possible. The good fish sauce will only have anchovies and salt. And that's it. 

And fish sauce is actually made right in the region I came from. So the way that they make it, uh, is, they have a vat, a wooden vat. And they would start the first layer with salt, and then it would just keep layering with anchovies and salt and anchovies and salt and anchovies and salt. And then they just let that ferment until the, the liquid starts to come out. And the first batch is the best batch. It's called, you know, the, the premium fish sauce. And, and it's very, very salty because it's basically liquid that is saturated with salt, right?

I mean, if you leave that out on a plate, you would have like fish of salt. So we use that and, and, and so I would look for a simple ingredient that is not mixed with other things, because sometimes you see sugar and so on. Now it's not gonna smell very pleasant to people who are not used to fish sauce, because it's fermented fish.

So when you think about it, it's actually not that foreign because it's just anchovies. And you think how a can of anchovies smells that are preserved in salt, that's what fish sauce is supposed to smell like. 

And in fact, I make my Caesar salad with fish sauce. Instead of mashing up my anchovies, I just put a few drops of fish sauce in there and there's my, there's my Caesar salad.

Paula Mohammed: I'm going to try that next time. Yeah, that's a great idea. I wanna go back to, I'm still, I've got a vision of my, in my head. I just love what you shared with us about how your dad would have everybody come together and share in the meal together and that whole idea of food as a vehicle for creating community and sharing culture. And also, we've talked quite a bit about how important it is to learn those recipes from our, our elders and pass it on to the next generations. 

How do you do that in your, with your family and, and how have you seen that happening, in Vietnam today? Or if it is, or what you would like to see happening?

Raymond Liens: Well, I would say that my, um, vision or my tradition of Vietnam is kind of dated in the sense that, you know, we use mostly primary ingredients, out of necessity at that time. You know, Vietnam doesn't have a lot of manufacturing. So we use a fish sauce from the fish sauce maker, right? We would go and there's no preservative, there's nothing. It's just, we just bring a bottle, fill it up, bring it home, use it, so we still continue to cook the same way. However, the younger generation, including the ones in my family, they, instead of making uh, a certain dish, they just buy the bouillon that is already made and then they just add water. Which is great as well, you know, but it just not the taste that I grew up with. Nowadays it's very, very different. I mean, nowadays people get, you know, prepared packages and so on and so forth. You know, I personally think that, you know, that's great for convenience, that's great for, but to me, cooking like that is like painting by numbers. You can't call yourself an artist.

So that's what I do. I, I cook from scratch. I, I mix my own spices. I mix my, I even buy curry powder and mix it with other types of curry powder, so I can get that taste that I know just from smell and, and the taste. 

Paula Mohammed: Yeah, I know curry is very regional in India, you know, every, well, every family has their their different mix. How is the Mekong Delta cuisine different from other parts of Vietnam? Is Vietnamese cuisine as regional as we hear about Indian cuisine or Italian cuisine?

Raymond Liens: Yes, very much so. The North Vietnam cooking is very much influenced by China. So there's a lot of dishes that you have because of the proximity to China. The middle of Vietnam, which is around the Huế area, which is the imperial city. Their food is a lot more, um, formal, so it's more court like. You know, the presentation, it's a lot of delicacies, a lot of hand, so like pleating and folding and so on and so forth. And the south is very much like let's just mix things together and that's our dish. South Vietnam is also very much influenced by the Cambodian culture or the Khmer culture. And the Khmer culture is a very old, uh, Hindu culture. I mean, those are the people that, that built, Angkor Wat, that built Champa, that built... and Vietnam for the longest time, it was part of those kingdoms. So our food is very much influenced by that, which has a lot of pickles, lot of preserved fish, lots of preserved, not just fish, but also preserved prawns.

We use green papaya in a salad. We use green mangoes in a salad with, um, with dried shrimp, which is something that you don't have in the north. 

Paula Mohammed: There's a lot of talk about Cucina Povera and, you know, going back to sort of the rural peasant cooking, poor kitchens and that head to tail style of cooking, is this something that you see in Vietnamese cooking now?

Raymond Liens: Yeah, well, I mean that for us, that was a way of life. I mean, it was so much part of our subconscious that we didn't even think about any other way to eat. And, and I remember as a kid, we would buy a live chicken. We would come home and we would just slaughter our own chicken. And then we would save the blood, put some salt in it, let it congeal. Then we'd make something. Cut into cubes and make a soup with that. And the, the, the, the innards of, of the chicken, uh, we would use it for, uh, for congee. We would blanch it, clean it, blanch it, and use it as a topping for congee.

Uh, the meat, we would shred it. We do either a salad with it or we do, you know, we cut out the breast, we do a stir fry with that and then all the bones and stuff will go into making the broth that, that we gonna, that we make for congee and the Vietnamese have such a lovely word for that. With offal which sounds terrible in English, but, but Vietnamese it's called Cháo Long, it's from the soul.

Paula Mohammed: Oh, that's beautiful.

Raymond Liens: So, yeah, so it's congee from the soul. And so when you get Cháo Long, you know, it means that somebody very, very caring, you know, to prepare that for you. And, and then we, we also slice up all the innards and we just put it on top and we eat that with a, um, a deep fried, savory Chinese donut with lots of cilantro and ground white pepper. Oh, and a squeeze of lime. We are always add lime.

Paula Mohammed: Well, the cooking that I've done with you, I love it because it, it's always feels and tastes so fresh and healthy. One of my favorite dishes that I make with you is the Vietnamese Noodle Bowl. It's a family favorite now.

I wanted to go back, Raymond, to something that you said earlier on that struck a note with me is when your family had to leave Vietnam, that you, were the others, you didn't feel a sense of belonging to your community.

How has that impacted you growing up and as an adult now? Do you have that sense of belonging or where is it?

Raymond Liens: Well, I, I make myself relevant through food, through, through living in different parts of the world. And, and I, and, and the sense of belonging that I feel is that I remember my grandfather once said, you know, wherever this wood fire burning, there's Chinese people. Right? And also having a handful of languages, you know, I tell people that I speak three European languages and a handful of Asian languages and so I feel like with that, it gives me it, and through food, it gives me the immediate sense of belonging wherever I go. Right? I was in the Yucatan not too long ago, and I met this woman whom my friend thought was Mayan. And my friend, and didn't, you know, she, she's a snowbird. Uh, her Spanish was not very good, so she said, oh yeah, meet, uh, Maria, you know, like, she's local, she's Mayan, and so on. And so, so when I met this woman, I just felt this like natural affinity to her and I didn't know why, so when I start talking to her and she said, did she know that my ancestors were actually from China and they came to work on the fields in the Yucatan to make shipping ropes. So, she was there for many, many generations, you know, and we have this immediate kinship where we talk about food. And so it was, it was amazing. So, my sense of belonging has changed is because I feel that with my curiosity, with my language, I, I can bypass all of those. I could go anywhere in the world, and I tell people because I speak those languages, I feel like I'm the local immigrant. I might not be from there, but I could live there and no one would dispute me.

Paula Mohammed: I was so close to traveling through Vietnam in the nineties, no, sorry, in 2000. 1999, 2000. And it didn't pan out for me. I've always had a dream to go back and go to Vietnam. What would you say to our listeners and to myself about what to see or how to, how to travel in that region... to get the best local experience?

Raymond Liens: Yes. Don't follow a tour.

Paula Mohammed: Don't follow a tour. Okay.

Raymond Liens: Don't follow a tour, because it doesn't matter which town that you go to. Always have a public market. Right? And now bigger towns will have the supermarket or whatever, but I still go to the public market and the public market is organized as such. There's a fresh vegetable section, there's a meat and poultry section and around the perimeter would be food vendors all around. So you could just go around the market, just taste whatever food, and, and remember these food vendors, you know, if they're not the best at what they make, they would not survive.

Paula Mohammed: Right. Okay.

Raymond Liens: They will, they will serve one single dish and that's the dish that they would be known for. So you could just try, you know, your way around the market and then go and get the vegetables and, and then, you know, get your fish or your meat or whatever.

So have that experience, right? Because that's where you really get to taste, uh, that the real Vietnamese food. Now, of course you have to kind of like leave your sort of like whatever hygiene question standards or whatever, right? But I have a way around that. I bring my own chopsticks. I bring my own plate.

Paula Mohammed: Those are great tips. Bring your own chopsticks and bring your own plate.

Raymond Liens: I bring my own spoons. I bring my own, you know, and sometimes, you know, they would just put some banana leafs on my plate and then they would serve it to me on the banana leaf on my plate. And I would just eat it like that. And then when I get back to the hotel, I would wash it. No, I wouldn't, I didn't do that when I was a kid. But as I evolved, I think, you know, it's like, okay, I can only be a local, you know so far.

Paula Mohammed: A local with limits.

Raymond Liens: A local with limits and, that's how I eat. And I think everything tastes better when served on a banana leaf.

Paula Mohammed: Oh my gosh. That's a great saying. Raymond, thank you so much. I could sit and chat with you around the table for hours and still so much that I would like to share with our listeners about things that you've taught me and, and what we've chatted about, so we'll have to do this again soon. But if you want to cook with Raymond and learn more about Raymond, you can read up on Raymond at Inmykitchen.ca as a host for In My Kitchen. And I'll put in the show notes a link to some of the upcoming online classes. Also on our Instagram @inmykitchenpaula. 

But Raymond, you share a lot your social media and if our listeners would like to follow along and learn more about the dishes that you're making on a regular basis, how can they do that?

Raymond Liens: I'm @veryasian. You know, you could read into it as much as you like. But it's also, I just want people to think that, you know, there, there's a variety of us, right?

It's, we're not just one Asian. We're not just one nation Asian. We're a diaspora and, and our diaspora, the strength of our diaspora survives because of our ability to adapt. So wherever we eat, we try to use the local ingredients and make it the way that we are accustomed to.

Paula Mohammed: Thank you so much for spending your time here. I love cooking with you and I've really cherished last four years getting to know you 

Raymond Liens: Same here. Let's do that real soon again.

Paula Mohammed: I hope you enjoyed this podcast interview as much as I did, if you'd like to join me on more culinary journeys, sign up for one of my virtual cooking classes, where I interview and cook with passionate and knowledgeable home cooks from diverse cultures. You'll learn about the recipes, culture, and people from the places you want to travel to. 

These classes are the perfect way to explore culture through food with me as your guide, moderating the experience to ensure it is a fun, smooth adventure. Just click the link in the show notes to see upcoming classes. 

Also, I'm excited to offer my free guide: 10 Unique Travel & Food Tips You Won't Find Anywhere Else. The link is in the show notes and there's some really great info in there. 

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. If you have any questions, just ask me, I'll be happy to chat with you. In the meantime, take the first step on your next culinary adventure and sign up for my free guide. 

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