![]() ![]() "We have a lot of African customers, so business is quite good now," said Chaseng Vang, who sells at his mother's stand most weekends outside the Unidale Mall on University Avenue. Department of Agriculture report, farmers market sales nationwide have plateaued. Hmong-American farmers who have made the foray into growing African crops said they are enjoying a surge in sales and customers, despite the fact that, according to a 2015 U.S. "We were all shipping to family members and in different states." This fall, he bought the same batch of vegetables for relatives in California, Maryland and Ohio. "To my surprise, when I went to the Brooklyn Park post office, there was a huge line of Liberians with boxes of kittley, bitter balls and peppers," he said. ![]() Jimmy Earley, a Shoreview, resident, said he's shipped produce to eight out-of-towners so far this year. When West African cooks outside the Twin Cities can't find someone who's making the trip, their Twin Cities relatives and friends often help out. "This is the food of our culture, the food that we're most familiar with," he said, clutching shopping lists from other Liberians in Oklahoma who couldn't make the trip. Steve Songor's road trip from Tulsa, Okla., to the Minneapolis market took 12 hours, but Songor, who's from Liberia, said it was worth it. "They get a big cargo truck full of bitter balls, kittley - and they haul it back." "We have people from New York, Texas, Ohio," he said. Pat Nelson said the Minneapolis farmers market, which he manages, attracts customers from across the country. Eventually Hmong growers captured this local - and ever-widening - community of customers that had been overlooked by mainstream farmers. Paul.ĭetermined shoppers brought seeds, stalks and even pictures to Lor and other farmers. "We still don't know the real names of the vegetables," said Robert Lor, a farmer who lives in St. Kenyans clamored for mrenda, Liberians craved palaver sauce and some Nigerians pleaded for them to grow ewedu: three names for the same thing - corchorus leaves - a leafy green vegetable similar to spinach but with the consistency of okra, when it's cooked. But seizing it proved daunting for some Hmong-American farmers, especially with a significant language barrier to overcome.Īfricans' different names for the same vegetable stumped the farmers. The Twin Cities metro area has become home to sizable African immigrant populations the past two decades, so the customer base was there. Other growers also count ethnic grocery stores across the country among their customers.ĭozens of vendors now offer sweet potato greens for sauteeing into savory stews with chunks of meat and poultry habaneros, a main ingredient for their spicy dishes and bitter balls and kittley, essentials for torborgee - a curious medley of pureed eggplants cooked with fermented palm oil, dashes of baking soda and an assortment of meats. One of our biggest customers comes every two weeks from Seattle."Īnd every time that customer visits, Lee said, he buys her family's entire crop of bitter balls, a vegetable beloved for its acrid aftertaste, for his African grocery store. "They come from all over: Iowa, North Dakota, Wisconsin. "Most of our customers are from out of state," said May Lee, whose family began selling at the Minneapolis market 20 years ago. ![]()
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