She takes care to write “bon appétit” in Laotian on the cover page. This Friday, June 21, in the restaurant of one of her sons in La Rochelle, Toune Khamvene, alias May which means “mom” in Laotian, plays the game of dedications. For her, this highlighting is a first. May, 70 years old, usually hides behind her stove. Under the impetus…
She tries to write “bon appetit” in Laotian on the cover page. This Friday, June 21, in the restaurant of one of his sons in La Rochelle, Toune Khamvene, alias May which means “mom” in Laotian, is doing the signing game. For her, this spotlight is a first. May, 70, usually hides behind his stove. Under the leadership of his daughter-in-law Marie-Pierre Khamvene, his life of choices, struggles, and resilience is today told in a book. Until now, the incredible story of this courageous mother of six children and outstanding cook was only known to her family. And even. Some of her descendants discovered in these 90 pages the journey of the one who started from far away and from nothing. “Les Recettes de May” retraces chapter after chapter her trajectory from Laos to La Rochelle, among around thirty starters, main courses and desserts taken from the menu of her La Rochelle restaurants.
South West Editions
Around thirty recipes can be found in the book “Les Recettes de May”.
May was born in 1954 in Vientiane, Laos. Her father, of Chinese origin, ran his own restaurant. Little May grew up with a Laotian stepmother who taught her the basics of cooking, and a father she loved watching work. The one who went to school for one year, married Pro, a Vietnamese businessman ten years her senior. She was 14 years old. Six children were born from this union. But the family was quickly separated by the civil war.
The son hired in “Fort Boyard”
Like 400,000 people, May and her family fled Laos and the exactions of the People’s Democratic Republic. In the Khon Kaen refugee camp on the Thai border, times were hard. After a year, without telling anyone, May left for France with her three youngest children to join her husband who was already in Paris. She did not speak French, and she discovered the cold. She would not see her three eldest again until three years later with the rest of the family who had remained in Thailand.
In a small apartment in Bondi, May cooks for her tribe. The smell fills the council estate. Enticed by the smell, the neighbours buy more and more spring rolls from her. Her husband’s boss is interested in this promising business and offers her a place on rue Montmartre. May runs her first restaurant, before opening her own establishment, the New Bangkok. Success is immediate. Her boys catch the cooking bug. Everything changes when Raymond is hired by the production company of “Fort Boyard” for the role of the sumo jailer and gong ringer in 1992. He opens a restaurant himself in Fouras. The destiny of the eldest son will take the whole family to the shores of Charente-Maritime.
Xavier Léoty/SO
In the restaurant, the dishes combine local products and Asian tradition.
Dishes with multiple inspirations
The family is today at the head of l’Asiane in Aytré, Iséo, La Boussole, le Galanga, and Amore in La Rochelle, and is associated with chef Carlos Foito at Ginger, Les Quatre Sergents and Koya. In the five establishments, “fusion” cuisine is legion. Between local products and Asian tradition, you can taste sushi with foie gras, a wok of scallops and spaghetti with red curry, roast duck breast with honey, soy and vinegared rice, a sea casserole with yellow curry and milk coconut… All the recipes recall May’s life, like a book opened today that has become reality.
“May’s Recipes” published by Éditions Sud Ouest, 93 p., €20.
