- notes 2026 Sun Mar 15
The Hungry Season
A Journey of War, Love, and Survival
- Lisa M. Hamilton . 2023 . 921 MOUA la . Hillsboro Library
- I was expecting an adversity-to-success story; this is more a "horror-to-painful-survival" story
- The protagonist is Ia Moua, born (1964?) near Sa Na Oua Laos, child in Ban Vinai refugee camp in Thailand, wife of Chou Lor, mother of 12, US immigrant, rice farmer near Fresno CA
- Ban Vinai is 400+ km northwest of Yasothon and the Kham Khaen Sok park where Shara and I watched a Bun Bang Fai Rocket Festival, a few years before we married
- Few notes from the book - the writing is diligent but not alluring, given the challenging lives (and deaths) described
- Ia Moua escaped to Thailand in 1979
p155 mov nplej tshiab (roasted, newly harvested Hmong rice - Hmong Rice
- p155 Jimmy, sixth or Ia's seven sons
- p180 generic light brown dogs, "mean average of all the colors a dog can be"
- p191 "slash and burn" is outsider mis-characterization of Laotian upland farming; actually clear the forest, cultivate open space for a few years, move elsewhere while the forest quickly regrows.
- p204 son Thao's "pudding" made of minced brains, tongue, ear, and cheek meat
sous vide low-temperature (55 to 60 ℃) long-time cooking
- p209 bringing Ia's mother to the US: Ia has no "legible income" (?), no English skills, no literacy
- p241 friend ate rice, blood sugar to 400
- Ia says "eat the sticky rice but don't check your blood sugar - if you don't know the number, then you don't have to worry about it.
- healthy blood sugar level: 72 to 88 mg/dL fasting, 140 mg/dL after a meal
Acknowledgements
encouraged by food author Anna Lappé, daughter of Frances Moore Lappé
Another Lisa Hamilton book is Deeply rooted: unconventional farmers in the age of agribusiness 2009
ISBN 1593761805 AbeBooks $6.52 (Reno, good)