- If you know me, you know I love meat, like, I really love meat.

But today, we're shaking things up in the kitchen with folks who put plants in the spotlight.

Our first chefs have a unique twist that will leave you questioning whether you're savoring a plant-based alternative, or the real deal.

(high energy music) Have you ever tasted something that transported you to another world?

Dude, that's so legit.

I'm Chef Yia Vang.

That's what I aim to do, every time I cook.

This looks amazing.

As a Hmong refugee from Southeast Asia, I use food as a way to share my culture, my family, and our history.

(blender humming) (knife thudding) (Yia laughing) Join me as we step into the kitchen with local chefs, to relish the cuisines and culture of our neighbors.

(upbeat music) (camera snapping) Meet Aubry Walch, and Kale Walch, siblings serving up plant-based meat and cheese alternatives in their vegan foodie hotspots.

- Kale.

- Great to meet you.

- Good to meet you.

(speaking Hmong) We're here in Hmong Village, man, I love it.

I come here all the time, actually.

So it's so cool to meet you guys up here.

What are we looking for today?

- We're looking for some ingredients to make a few dishes from our island of Guam.

What are we making, Aubs?

- We're gonna do beef kelaguen and chicken kelaguen, (dish sizzling) as well as a side of red rice, is what we like to eat it with.

- Okay, so I heard beef and chicken, but I also was told that this is all plant-based, right?

- Yeah.

We'll prove it to you somehow.

We're looking for some jackfruit, we need some Thai chilis, a few other things.

- A coconut.

- Okay, okay.

- Yeah.

(upbeat drum music) - I get inspiration at places like Hmong Village all the time.

I see just a completely new way of making a dish that I've been trying to improve.

We have a lot of experiences like that, where we have to think so far outside of the box, coming at it from this crazy angle, and it works.

And it's a blast, honestly.

So first thing we need is jackfruit.

That's gonna be the base of our kelaguen, and a few of our things.

Down here looks like a good one.

(gentle choral music) Oh yeah.

Yeah, so the jackfruit comes from Eastern Asia.

They grow even bigger than this.

They're known for their sort of stringy properties when they're still young and unripe.

- I was a stringy property once.

(Kale and Aubry laughing) - The really ripe ones are really sweet.

That's actually what Juicy Fruit gum is flavored after.

- No way!

- I know, I know.

- That's awesome.

- That was wild.

We definitely want the green jackfruit for our stuff.

We take the pieces of jackfruit, process 'em, and pull them apart, oh, thank you so much.

- Yeah.

- Oh, ah.

- Hey little guy.

(Aubry laughing) So, you know, I've heard that it almost has like a pulled pork consistency type.

- [Kale] Totally.

- Is that true?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

In fact, we use it to make our carnitas, and shredded chicken and shredded beef.

- So are we gonna take this bad boy?

As much as I would like to, we've got a canned version that's a little more consistent, and my machete's not as sharp as it oughta be right now, so, yeah.

- I have a machete.

I have a machete in my truck.

- Really?

Okay.

- [Aubry] We'll need that for the coconut.

- Yeah, awesome.

So how much do you think this thing weighs?

- Oh geez.

I'm embarrassed if it's low, 'cause I was struggling so, I'm gonna say 50 pounds.

- 50 pounds?

- Yeah, no, 'cause I'm strong.

- I'll go with 17.

(Kale laughing) - 17?

I'm feeling like, yeah, 15, - Wow.

- 17 area there, y'know.

(static buzzing) - On Guam Island in the middle of the Northern Marianas, 40 miles long and 10 miles wide at the widest point.

So it is so small, a lot of US military there, so it's an American territory.

It's a paradise to us, and that's where we were both born.

Kale was six months when we moved, and I was 13.

(upbeat music) - So yeah.

We need some Thai chilis for the finadene.

Does it go into anything else, Aubs?

- Yep, it goes in the kelaguen.

You chop it up finely.

On Guam, we like everything as spicy as possible.

- [Kale] Green onions, you know 'em, you love 'em.

- [Yia] Oh yeah.

- [Kale] Those are beautiful onions.

- It's 'cause they're green, and they're onions.

(Aubry laughing) - [Kale] That's right.

- So we use shredded coconut in our kelaguen.

We'll break it in half and we use what we call a kamyu.

So you sit on it on the ground and you shred it.

- Like a little scraper.

- Yeah, yeah, yep.

- Cool.

How many do we need?

- One should do, yeah.

- One should do.

- Okay.

(upbeat music) - This is the ripe jackfruit.

So I might use this for something a little special later on.

(upbeat music) - All right, let's go cook.

♪ Now it's always a bad time, baby ♪ ♪ Echo and it started to go crazy, oh ♪ ♪ And I don't feel like myself anymore ♪ - I am gonna start by preparing the jackfruit for its sauté.

You can see how far it's come here.

This is the ripe jackfruit, and this is young green jackfruit, comes in the can.

- Guam is so much about family and eating, and that's, all my memories are based around the dinner table or around the grill.

In every single village, on Sundays or Saturdays, sometimes, we'll have a fiesta, and it does not matter who you are or what village you're from, you can go to anyone, on any kind of table, you have five different meats, you have ribs, you have chicken, you have fish, you have grilled hot dogs.

It wasn't like we didn't like meat, we just didn't wanna consume animals anymore.

I went vegan when I was very young, I was 14.

I spent a lot of my life trying to recreate my grandma's dishes that I had on Guam, so I could feel like I was at home again, you know?

So kelaguen is one of those main dishes that's always on the fiesta table.

It's a really simple dish, it's eaten cold, and it has coconut and onions and peppers, and it's a lot of citrus in it.

All right, while Kale works on the beef kelaguen, I'm gonna do the chicken.

- [Yia] Okay, and then, this chicken you guys make, back at your shop.

- Yep.

We sure do.

- Awesome.

What's the process of making this chicken?

- It's horrible.

(Yia laughing) So it starts out the vital wheat gluten, just a high protein wheat flour.

We combine ours with a fresh organic soy milk.

All goes into this big mixer that really works it into the super muscular dough.

After that, it gets steamed.

- I mean, it does look like dark meat chicken.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah.

(everyone laughing) - We still get people coming into our fried chicken shop that don't know it's vegan, and they'll be like, "Oh, I'll just do a six piece dark meat."

And we'll be like, "All right."

- Okay.

- We gotcha.

- How did the journey from Guam to Minneapolis, like, how did that happen?

- Bloomington, Minnesota was on a list of the top 100 places to raise a family in Forbes Magazine in 1992 or something.

So we moved straight from Guam to Bloomington, Minnesota.

(upbeat music) - All right.

I'll get started over here.

Could use some diced red onions, if you don't mind?

- [Yia] Oh, we shall.

- [Aubry] There you go.

(pan sizzling) (upbeat music) - Yeah, when we were first opening the store, we were trying to explain to the health department what we were doing.

We're like, well, I mean, it's a butcher shop, but we're not using meat.

And then our architect just looks over and goes, "It's a savory bakery."

Cut up maybe like six peppers, throw 'em in there.

- Oui, chef.

(upbeat music) (knife thumping) - [Aubry] We're gonna use the Yours lemon powder.

- [Yia] Yep.

- Just a little bit, as Nana says.

- Yes, Nana.

- [Aubry] Yes, Nana.

(upbeat music) - [Kale] And drop some in.

(pan sizzling) Add some cocoa powder in.

- So it was all about, we weren't really satisfied with what was on the market.

When I was 14 and went vegan, it was like, there was one veggie burger, and tofu.

And then one brand made a mock duck, and that was it.

So it was just about learning and figuring out textures, and, what type of vinegar breaks down wheat gluten at the base, it's what Kale's been working on every single day forever and ever.

- I'm gonna show you how to make just very rudimentary seitan, like the mock duck we see at the grocery store.

Starts with vital wheat gluten, very high protein wheat flour.

Nutritional yeast, just adds savory backbone.

So I'll just sprinkle a little bit of that.

Little garlic powder, just 'cause.

Put a little bit of soy sauce in this water.

Add the water/soy sauce mixture to the vital wheat gluten mix.

- [Yia] Ooh.

(laid back music) - It's really fun because, you know, depending on how much you mix it, or how little, you can get different textures and different cooking methods can take you anywhere from bacon to steak to sausage.

- When you're making that, it's almost the opposite of like bread dough where you want it to be poofy, you want it to be light, you want it to be airy.

It's like you have to like reverse your brain, making this.

- Exactly, yeah, it's weird.

It's definitely when you're doing it for the first time, you have to go against most of everything- - Everything you learned.

- Yeah.

(static buzzing) - And then we kind of teamed up.

I would make vegan meat substitutes just at home and then he would do the same thing.

And we just kind of went back and forth like that for a long time, and I think you were 15 maybe.

And I said, "Hey, do you wanna own a business with me when you're older?"

And he said, "No, I don't.

I don't think so."

(Kale laughing) But you know, I got him to, later.

- Talk to me about the shops that you guys have.

- Well, we started at the Minneapolis Farmer's Market.

(upbeat music) The butcher shop idea kind of was a joke for a while.

And then we decided it actually might work, because it's just weird enough.

- We got a meat case, cheese case, looks like a butcher shop, got the sandwiches, yeah.

Guy Fieri's favorites.

(static buzzing) - I'd eat it all day long.

(everyone laughing) - So we're gonna make a finadene.

It's a sauce that we put on everything on Guam.

All it has is peppers, Yours lemon powder, a little bit of water, some soy sauce, and yellow onion.

And you just let it sit and marinate, and once the food's ready, the sauce is always ready to go.

A lot of the flavors are, a lot of vinegar, a lot of citrus, soy sauce, stuff like that.

It's similar for what we use to marinade, stuff that we grill, similar to what we are gonna put in kelaguen today.

- [Kale] Then it's almost coconut time.

- Oh yeah, coconut time.

You're gonna be doing the coconut, right?

- If I'm going down there to do the coconut, I'm not coming back up.

- For us, it was always my nana.

Every single morning I would come to her house and she would've the kamyu out, and she'd be grating the coconut and... (gentle music) (machete thuds) - Oh yeah.

(machete thuds) (coconut milk splashing) - Oh, there we go.

(grater rattling) (coconut scraping) - I feel like I was just kind of put in this place where, I'm not from here, but I feel like, if I went back to Guam, like some people would be like, "Oh, you're not from here, either."

Searching for culture in food helps sometimes, and going back to Guam obviously helps, but it's weird.

- I think a lot of Hmong kids, especially like millennials, Gen Z kids, are walking that route right now, and totally, it's like, I don't know where I belong.

- Yeah, I've always been sort of like envious of the success of the Hmong culture.

Just, you know, how strong your culture is, how, you know, through the generations, it's still, and through being scattered across the world.

In Guam, it's starting to fade away.

You know, like no one really speaks Chamorro.

Even with the food, like, you're hard pressed to find any Chamorro food.

- It is tough, like, we have a fried chicken place, and this past summer we tried to do a Chamorro special, where we had red rice and Guamanian macaroni salad and people just didn't understand it.

- So this is why food's so personal to me, right?

I was afraid that if people rejected our food, it was, they rejected us, but then I can't run from who I am.

And so, like my question to you is like, What is it about your culture that you hold on to, the thing that nobody can take from you?

Like, what's that aspect of it?

- I try to hold on to my family, and closeness, as much as possible.

(upbeat music) (blender humming) (liquid splashing) - Little jackfruit daiquiri.

(laid back music) - Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

- So good.

- Take me to the tropics.

Here we go.

(upbeat music) - [Aubry] Yeah, yep.

- Oh, there's a certain way to do it?

- Well, in Guam, we eat everything with our hands, so.

- Oh, absolutely.

- We just- - At our house, too.

- You dump the finadene all over everything.

- Okay, great.

(upbeat music) ♪ I don't wanna play hide and seek ♪ - I love this.

It's that hint of sweetness, you know, from the coconut.

- [Aubry] Yep.

- Aubry, Kale, I will be very honest.

Like every time, when I think of the word vegan or anything that's like meat alternative, first reaction is, is like, "Eh, we'll see."

(Aubry and Kale laughing) But you guys are starting to change my mind.

Like coming in here and just, you know, I'm like, I was just trying the chicken.

I'm like, wow, this tastes just like chicken broth, you know, or eating the jackfruit and saying, "I have forgotten that that was jackfruit," that it was just this big old green looking thing, you know?

To still being, staying true to those traditions and innovating it to this, that's incredible.

- You know, we're putting our own spin on our things, and trying to keep our culture alive in our own way.

- With the seitan, you actually gave me some ideas that I want to really go back to our place and try it.

- [Kale] Nice, totally.

- Can't wait.

- [Yia] Yeah, well, thank you for everything.

- Of course, thank you.

- [Kale] Thank you.

(upbeat music) - The work that Aubry and Kale are doing with vegan meats and cheeses might seem like a modern marvel, but plant-based substitutes actually date back centuries.

Evidence of soy-based tofu can be traced back to the Han Dynasty in China in 200 BC.

Buddhist monks developed a flavored wheat gluten, similar to modern day seitan, way back in the sixth century.

Around 1800, tempeh was created in Indonesia, using fermented soybeans.

Protose was a meat substitute created by John Harvey Kellogg, yes, that Kellogg, in the late 19th century, made from peanuts, wheat gluten, and other ingredients.

Protose was one of the first meat substitutes available in grocery stores.

Modern day mainstays followed, with the first veggie burgers hitting stores in the 1980s, Tofurkey in 1995, and the Impossible Burger in 2016.

Meat substitutes have no doubt been a game changer, but there will always be a place for good old fashioned veggies.

(upbeat urban music) (water splashing) Meet Chef K Taylor, and Mariam Omari, the dynamic duo behind K's Revolutionary Catering, for serving up meals inspired by East African and soul food traditions, with a keen interest in getting folks to eat more veggies.

(upbeat drum music) - [K] It's a collaboration.

- [Mariam] Yeah.

- Hey!

- K, Chef K, nice to meet you.

- Mariam, gimme the bowl.

How you doing?

(all three speaking at once) - So what do we got today?

- Everyone in my family has either cooked professionally or just really great homemakers.

My family's from the South, Louisiana, New Orleans area.

My mom definitely was the director, 'cause her whole thing was, you are to get out of my house, and you will not live with me forever.

And so you need to know how to take care of yourself.

Cooking was part of that.

(upbeat music) - Well, I'm a first generation Kenyan American.

My dad was a musician.

Kenyan immigrants would come here to visit.

My dad would host them.

So then we started cooking for more people and we became my mom's little sous-chefs, you know, around the house.

- We're gonna do two different styles of collards.

One is like your traditional African American version, but with no meat.

Your favorite?

Vegetarian food?

(Mariam laughing) - No meat (laughing).

- Cows eat vegetables, I eat cows, so in a way, I eat vegetables.

(everyone laughing) And then a Kenyan version, which is like coconut milk and things like that, so it's gonna be good.

- Collard greens have been around since prehistoric times.

One of the oldest members of the cabbage family, the greens were first noted near Greece, eventually making their way to Europe and Africa and beyond.

The arrival of collard greens in America is tied to slavery.

Enslaved people brought native plants, including collard greens, from Africa to Virginia, which they grew and harvested.

- So the difference between these two is that mine doesn't have garlic in it, and mine uses tomatoes and purple onion.

(upbeat music) - How many cloves?

- Make it five.

- Yeah, that's the spirit.

- [K] Yeah.

You know what Mariam, I just realized that yours didn't have garlic in it, and I don't think I ever knew that.

- [Mariam] Because it's my secret.

- [K] Oh.

- [Yia] Secret is not garlic.

- [K] Yeah.

(Mariam laughing) - There's just something about prepping, that just like, makes my mind at ease.

- [K] Yes.

- [Mariam] Yeah.

- It sounds really weird, you know?

- [K] It's meditative.

(knife thumping) You guys are doing a really great job.

- Thank you.

- [K] It's time to cut the greens.

- It's time to cut the greens.

- [K] All right.

Come on, dig in.

- [Mariam] Dig in.

- [Yia] Growing up, what was your feelings towards collard greens?

- I always loved greens.

- [Mariam] Me too.

- I've always loved greens.

- My mama's greens, forget about it.

- [K] Yeah, oh man.

Yeah.

- I remember when I was a kid, I had to do 'em like this.

(leaf ripping) And then Chef K came into my world and showed me this super fun way that I want her to show you.

- [Yia] Okay.

- I just take my knife, the blade, and go down the stem of the collard.

- That's very interesting, like for me, I was kind of the opposite.

Growing up with Hmong mustard greens, I was always like, "Ugh," and I remember when I was at college, and I came back home, it tastes different.

She looked a little different, if you know what I mean.

(all talking at once) - We grew up together, but something happened.

(everyone laughing) - Dang, you look good.

- Something happened over the summer.

(everyone laughing) (upbeat music) So I just take 'em, roll it up and just cut.

(knife crunching) It's easy.

- I grab 'em, I lay the leaves out on top of each other and chiffonade, thinly as I can.

- For these guys, I mean, you know, this thin, chic, this is rough and tumble.

- I think my first real like hard memory of greens and really appreciating them was when, as an adult, when I was in Africa, just spending time with my mom and these other ladies that they taught me how to cut these greens, specifically.

Learning with them, laughing with them, having a good time, that really stuck to me.

- Would you consider what the food you guys are making as soul food?

- Hm-mm.

The fact that I have some soul in my heart to make this food for you- - [K] I know that's right.

- That gives a damn, is soul food to me.

- Yeah.

(upbeat music) (knives thumping and crunching) (ingredients rattling) Coriander and cumin, jostle it up a little bit, just to shake it up.

- Shake it, shake it, don't break it.

It took your mama nine months to make it.

- Talk about it.

The really big thing that Kotia has in common with my family, that is nostalgic, is that you can smell the food from around the block.

(onions sizzling) ("Anytime" by Brassy Argentina) (ingredients sizzling) - [K] Yep.

Perfect, perfect.

- [Yia] Walk me through how you guys started this catering business together.

- So, having been in the industry, both of us, for more than 25 years at the time, because I've been working in the front of the house my whole life.

She's been working in the back of the house her whole life.

We really had been tired of the lack of integrity.

You know, after I learned more about how chef cooked and the variation of things that she could do, I learned that, you know, if I do some chopping and some selling, I think we could build something together.

She agreed on it based on the fact that we just said that we could call it "K's."

- So you can smell that nice aroma.

- Like just to change the idea behind real food that tastes great and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

(upbeat music) - Your company is more plant-based.

- No, we're more inclusionary.

- Our mission and goal is really just whole foods.

- Yeah.

- Like real ingredients.

- [K] Vegetables can taste good.

Don't be afraid of them.

- How do we really hone in on breaking bread?

How does that actually happen, where we're all feeling invited?

And I think that's what's really important to us.

- We have so many things that are going on in our hearts and our minds and our body and our environment, and so many things can be solved over a meal.

(laughing) - Yeah, I mean, I just, it'd be amazing if we cut chunks of bacon in here, anyways.

(Mariam laughing) Anyways.

- You gotta have your greens with the cornbread on the side, and then everything else, the vegan cornbread.

- [Yia] Maple syrup?

- [K] Yeah.

Maple syrup.

We gotta create the fluffiness.

We have to create the sweetness and cake-like- - You just described me.

Fluffy, sweet, cake like.

(chefs laughing) - Yeah, hey.

- [Yia] Let's do this.

- It comes out with a really beautiful shine.

Nice golden brown.

(everyone laughing) Again, we're looking for fluff.

We're looking for cake-like.

(Yia laughing) - And sweet.

- [K] And sweet.

(upbeat music) (upbeat dance music) ♪ She's so dangerous, so dangerous ♪ - Here we are.

Everything's done.

Chef K, who's our guest here?

- That is my lovely grandmother.

Her name is Freddie Jean Taylor and she's come to join us.

- Grandma, it's nice to have you here.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Grab some of this chapati, so with the chapati, we just kind of tear it apart.

Take our first little bites of the East African version.

- The fat from the coconut milks.

That's what gives it a little depth, right there.

That's so delicious.

- I don't know what you done, but it sure is good.

- Okay.

(everyone laughing) - With my cornbread, get a good little swoosh.

And it's messy.

I know it.

- Yeah, just like life, you know?

What I really like about the southern one?

That onion has that natural sweetness of the smoked paprika that comes through, deep, rich, smoky flavor, that's just so delicious.

- Well, let's eat up a little bit more, y'all.

- [K] So what do you think, grandma?

The greens with no meat.

- I love the cornbread and the collards greens were great.

A little spice?

- [K] Yeah, yeah.

- I never had collard greens without meat.

But what the hey?

(everyone laughing) It's really good.

- Bam.

Approved.

- We win.

(everyone laughing) (upbeat music) So much of what folks like Chef K, Mariam, Aubry and Kale are doing is honoring their family recipes while also modernizing them.

Whether it's introducing more veggies or making grandma's dish vegan, nothing can replace the feeling you get when you savor a bit of nostalgia.

♪ Girl, all the different skin shades ♪ ♪ All the different girls (upbeat dance music) (gentle music) (gentle tone ringing)