ST PAUL, Minn. — Food that tastes like home, in a hospital. That's part of what Saint Paul's Regions Hospital is trying to serve up when it comes to the diet of new mothers from different cultures. Next year, Hmong mothers will have a familiar meal option after giving birth.
Regions Hospital chef Nhia Thao's story has come full circle. He is the production supervisor and manager for the hospital’s nutrition services division.
“My mom had me here, so I was born here,” Thao said.
Thao said back then, his mom knew almost no English. He said she couldn’t communicate what she wanted to eat after having him.
“When she came here she had eggs and toast and she wanted this diet,” Thao said.
This, is what Hmong call the Chicken Soup Diet. It's a long tradition that Hmong women have this very specific meal after having a baby. Starting in April, they can at the hospital’s new birth center.
Rochelle Johnson, the director of nursing for the birth center, said they knew they had to center health equity in the project. Johnson said 60% of patients are people of color, with 25% needing an interpreter for their care.
“Our Hmong community is one of our largest delivering populations here and so we really wanted to make sure we incorporated those women's wishes and hopes and dreams for what a center could look like,” Johnson said.
Johnson said through their health equity work, they found post pregnancy food mattered to these new moms.
Ornela Beslagic-Bjerke, the director of nutrition services, said they began working on the recipe.
“We wanted it to be authentic,” Beslagic-Bjerke said. “Exactly how they made it at home for many, many generations,” she said.
That meant Thao did more research, even asking Hmong elders about the recipe. He said Regions also partnered with the Hmong American Farmers Association to work with them to source the herbs. But first, Beslagic-Bjerke said they had to get the herbs identified by University of Minnesota scientists. They knew there was lemongrass, but couldn’t name the other herbs. Eventually, scientists identified the herbs as white mugwort, Okinawa spinach, and bloodleaf. The hospital then got it dietitian-approved.
Now, it was time for the taste test. Beslagic-Bjerke said they got the Hmong Healthcare Professionals Coalition involved.
“It was really good to see the head nods when they approved of the taste of the soup and the look of the soup,” she said.
Thao calls the recipe simple. You boil water and add salt to taste at home (there are restrictions for the hospital meal). Add chicken cut in chunks to size preference. Add the lemongrass and collect excess fat and blood from the boil. Let the soup boil until chicken is tender. Add the rest of the herbs and let it simmer for ten minutes.
And voila!
The meal is traditionally served with rice.
“You can smell the lemongrass, you can smell all the herbs from it, it's really earthy,” Thao said.
A father of a couple of children himself now, Thao said this upcoming menu item is for his wife, and so many other women.
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“It’s great to be a part of, but I was never looking at it for me,” Thao said. “It's for all the mothers. I have sisters, I have aunts, I have grandmas, you know, all of them,” he said.
The hospital does offer something similar, but a simpler recipe, now.
And it’s likely one that’s being offered at other metro hospitals too.
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