David Fong’s Lion Dance Brings Good Luck for the Year of the Snake

By Phyllis Louise Harris

January/February 2013

One of China’s most enjoyable New Year traditions is the Lion Dance designed to scare away evil spirits so that good luck will follow.

For more than thirty years David Fong and his family have performed this traditional dance at their Bloomington restaurant. This year diners can enjoy this good luck tradition Thursday, Friday and Saturday, February 7, 8, and 9.

It is a family affair for both the dancers and the diners. Each year families with children are among the diners who fill David Fong’s for this New Year tradition to enjoy the rhythmic, colorful twenty-minute program. Dancing to the beat of the drum, cymbals and gong, the happy lion moves from table to table stopping to tease the children and making sure evil has been sent away.

Performers are always members of the Fong family sometimes including three generations. Two will don the colorful lion costume and three will play the instruments.

Dating back to the third century B.C., the Chinese lion dance is intended to impart a happy, cheerful celebration for the New Year and for other special events. In Northern China the lion is made up of several performers donning the colorful almost dragon-like costume. In Southern China is composed of two dancers moving quickly to the rhythms of the instruments. There are specified steps for the movements and performers work in unison to perform them correctly. The banging of the drum and the clanging of the cymbals and gong are designed to frighten away evil spirits. This allows good luck to follow, hopefully, throughout the New Year.

The special New Year dinner is a family style menu including dishes not usually available the rest of the year as well as the restaurant’s complete Chinese and American offerings. Each diner receives a traditional New Year red envelope holding a shiny penny and chocolate-dipped fortune cookies at the end of the meal.

Dinner starts at 6:00 p.m. with the Lion Dance at 7:00 p.m. The three nights are usually sold out so reservations are essential. Call 952-888-9294, David Fong’s Chinese Restaurant at 94^th and Lyndale Avenue South in Bloomington. There is plenty of free parking in their adjacent lot. 
             
                 

Read more about Asian traditions and celebrations in Asian Flavors: Changing the Tastes of Minnesota since 1875, now in bookstores and on amazon.com. 

Buy online:  Asian Flavors: Changing the Tastes of Minnesota since 1875
    

Asian Flavors from an Italian connection

By Phyllis Louise Harris

November/December 2012

The son of Italian immigrants, Jeno Paulucci grew up on the Iron Range in northern Minnesota where life was anything but easy. In his biography How it was to make $100,000,000 in a hurry Jeno  says, “I was the son of an immigrant laborer, living in a five-dollar-a-month…flat filled with cockroaches and mining dust…on the edge of the iron dumps.” It was a difficult life where he began working at an early age unloading boxcars for one dollar per car or for an armload of speckled fruit. He built his own little red wagon out of discarded parts and pulled it along the railroad tracks picking up stray bits of coal to fuel the family’s stove. At the age of ten he started his first business by layering discarded scraps of colorful iron ore in vials and selling them to tourists for a quarter, fifty cents or a dollar: that is until the mining officials decided he was selling stolen scraps.

 In 1933, during the peak of the depression, the family opened a grocery store in the front room of their house in South Hibbing. It was the first home the Paulucci family owned, purchased from the mining company for $125 because it was to be torn down and used for firewood. The business was a success and continued in operation for twenty-two years, long after Jeno had earned fame and fortune.

 In addition to helping in the family business, Jeno got a job as a janitor in the Downtown Daylight Market where he was often paid in food. Then he started hawking fruit in a stand in front of the store where he was so successful he began earning cash: first three dollars then five dollars. His success came to the attention of the store’s owner, David Persha in Duluth, and he was transferred to the chain’s flagship store where he began to realize his talent in sales. He also knew he needed to build his own business.

After high school and a year of college, Jeno began traveling throughout Minnesota selling for a food distributor. It wasn’t long before he branched out on his own packaging and selling garlic throughout the state. It was on a garlic sales trip that he encountered a community of Japanese who were growing bean sprouts in Minneapolis. The story of how he turned bean sprouts into a $63-million Chinese food business is part of the story of the growth of Chinese food in Minnesota and throughout the country. And it is just one of more than seventy stories in Asian Flavors: Changing the Tastes of Minnesota since 1875.

Asian Flavors is a culmination of my twenty years as food editor of Asian Pages and the more than 500 articles I wrote for the paper. It is a history/cookbook created in collaboration with my culinary partner Raghavan Iyer who is also part of the story of Asian food in Minnesota.  The book is a tribute to the Asia Pacific Rim community and the wealth of traditions it has brought to Minnesota. We are very excited about Asian Flavors and hope you pick up a copy soon.

Favorite Restaurant Recipes in Asian Flavors / Now in bookstores

By Phyllis Louise Harris
October 2012

Sakura’s Futomaki, Sawatdee’s Holy Basil Supreme, Supatra’s Silver Bean Thread Noodle Salad, Quang’s Sea Bass Noodle Soup, Leeann Chin’s Chicken with Mango, and David Fong’s Chow Mein with Shrimp are just a few of the 160 recipes featured in the new four-color history/cookbook Asian Flavors: Changing the Tastes of Minnesota Since 1875. Published by the Minnesota Historical Press Asian Flavors is now available in bookstores and on amazon.com.

We went into the kitchens of several dozen area Asian restaurants and talked with the chefs, owners and people responsible for bringing the food of the Asia Pacific Rim to Minnesota. It all started in 1875 when the first Asian immigrants came to Minnesota from China and we feature a dish from the first Asian restaurant in Minnesota, the Canton Restaurant opened by the Woo brothers in 1883. It became John’s Place and operated on Sixth Street next door to Murray’s until 1967. Woo Du Sing’s granddaughter and great grandson recreated the recipe for the original John’s Place Special Chow Mein, a delicious combination of chicken and vegetables without using a single drop of soy sauce.

We also went into the kitchens of Asia Pacific Rim home cooks who share their traditional cooking with friends and neighbors to bring you the food of the Philippines including Chicken Adobo, Putos, Vegetarian Egg Rolls, Empanadas and Ube Cake.

We included a variety of recipes used in teaching programs by the Asian Culinary Arts Institutes such as Wok Smoked Duck, Steamed Buns, Pearl Balls, Hunan Pepper Sauce, Noodles with Sesame Sauce, Cantonese Shrimp, Green Beans in Mustard Sauce, Lamb Curry, Spinach Masala, Rice Noodles with Toasted Coconut, Poori, and dozens more.

We illustrated Asian Flavors with more than sixty four-color food photographs and on-site photos by the talented Tom Nelson of tnphoto.com. Jedlicka Design Ltd. designed the book to be attractive, readable and a treasure for years to come.  We added a timeline of the introduction of Asian food to Minnesota including familiar names such as Jeno Paulucci, Reiko Weston, Betty Crocker, and the Huie family of Duluth.

Asian Flavors is a culmination of my twenty years as food editor of Asian Pages and the more than 500 articles I wrote for the paper. It is in collaboration with my culinary partner Raghavan Iyer who is also part of the story of Asian food in Minnesota.  The book is a tribute to the Asia Pacific Rim community and the wealth of traditions it has brought to Minnesota. We are very excited about Asian Flavors and hope you pick up a copy soon.