|
|
These five restaurateurs survived war, genocide, and long journeys to bring their native cuisine to the Twin Cities.
January 2010
Minnesota has a reputation as the land of lefse and tuna casserole. But today you’re just as likely to find tamales and curries, pad Thai and baklava. It’s a culinary landscape we take for granted—but the people making these exotic foods do not. As these five profiles reveal, their lives are veritable movie plots, complete with tragedy, heroism, resiliency, compassion, cruelty, and improbable luck.
—Written by Mary Stucky
—Photographs by JoAnn Verburg
 |
When violence hit Somalia in efforts to overthrow the long-ruling president, Jamal Hashi and his brother tried to escape to Kenya, where they were put into a refugee camp.
|
 |
At five years old, Kunrath Lam and her family were forced out of their home in Cambodia by Communist-influenced Khmer Rouge soldiers to work in the jungle with little to eat.
|
 |
After the terrorist attacks on September 11, Palestinian Majdi Wadi received several threats to his Minneapolis grocery store and restaurant.
|
 |
Noelia Garcia's world quickly changed when she left Quebrantadero, the village where she grew up, to come to Minneapolis when she was 16.
|
 |
Before coming to Minnesota in 1992, Rodwan Nakshabandi was on the front line in Saddam Hussein's war against Iran, spent years in hiding, and ran for his life to escape Hussein's attack on the Kurds.
|
|
|
© 2011 MSP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved