You’ve heard before, “New Orleans is a melting pot.” But it’s sometimes lost how true this statement is – especially when it comes to our food. Chef, New Orleans native and now author Chef Nini Nguyen is showing just how influential the Vietnamese culture has been on New Orleans cuisine through her new cookbook. We chat with the chef ahead of her appearance at the New Orleans Book Festival this month.
Q: Where did your love of food come from?
My grandmother really taught me how to cook. I grew up in New Orleans East, and I cooked with my family, cooked with my grandmother. Like everybody, I feel like in Louisiana, your family gatherings are always surrounded by food. I think that’s really where my love for feeding people started, and I didn’t realize so after college that I wanted to make it a career.
Q: What’s it like being a “TV” chef?
I started off as a cook. I started in pastry, then switched over to savory. I’ve worked in fine dining. I’ve taught cooking classes. I developed a cooking school in New York, but I started competing on TV, and I think that competing and hosting are different things and different animals. Cooking in a restaurant and cooking on TV competition-wise are two different animals as well. I think that the transition was interesting, because I never really thought that I would ever be a TV chef, you know? I think I was very ambitious and wanted a restaurant. And maybe I still do. I still do. I want to open one eventually. But it’s weird. It’s weird being in this circle of TV chefs who compete and people recognizing you. With those TV competitions, there’s moments where I get to share my life, my upbringing, what I really want to share with the world. And so sometimes people do feel like they know me, and it’s always a little weird, but, but it’s good. It’s cool, it’s really cool.
Q: What was your inspiration for the cookbook?
The whole inspiration for the book was because I taught virtual cooking classes during the pandemic, and I taught a lot of Vietnamese dishes. I thought, Vietnamese people are not going to show up to my classes, and so many did. I was shocked. I thought: where’s your mom? Where’s your aunt, where’s your uncle? Why aren’t they teaching you? And it was either a language barrier, or their parents are no longer here. There was this urge to connect with our heritage. It was an eye-opener for me. I felt like I needed to preserve what I know as Vietnamese food, because, as generations settle and are born here, were losing our language. I think that it was very important for me to make a book, have it have a Vietnamese title, have all the dishes in Vietnamese and really help Vietnamese Americans connect with the food we grew up eating, but also I had to show my New Orleans side. I’m from Louisiana, there’s a lot of Vietnamese people here, and I feel like America doesn’t know that. I can be Vietnamese and from Louisiana. I think that a lot of immigrant families feel the same way – you’re American, but you’re also this other thing. So that’s what really inspired me to write the book. And I really, really wanted to depict our culture within the photos of the book. I wanted it to mimic the tables that I ate at growing up, from the newspaper lining table to the Budweiser in the background, or just like the mint sprigs on the side. I wanted it to resonate with Southeast Asian people who live in this country.
Q: Why is it important people recognize New Orleans as a food leader?
New Orleans is a very special place. There’s a reason why I moved back home. There’s a reason why this is where I want to put my roots in. It’s where my family set roots and where I plan to, and it’s because of how accepting everyone is and easy. Like, it’s easy to exist and it’s easy to be different in a city like New Orleans, and it’s because that’s who we are. It’s really hard to articulate the essence, but being from here and meeting people, and people knowing that I’m from here… It makes me proud. Everyone’s says, “Oh my God, I’ve been there, and I love it,” or “I want to go. I’m dying to go.” I hear so many good things. I’m like, we’re not perfect. We’re far from perfect, but I do think that it’s a magical place. And I think when people come, they see it, and the amount of adults who come and decide to make it home, there’s a reason. There’s a reason for that.
