Taste of Laos in Richmond school garden

The Verde Elementary School Partnership Garden is a reclaimed treasure in urban North Richmond, a flourishing melange of row crops and ornamentals, fruit trees and butterfly plants.

On our first visit 14 years ago, we saw Southeast Asians and Central Americans swapping chili peppers and beans.

A Mien woman used the school kitchen to make sweet corn pancakes to share.

[...] changes in demographics and funding have reshaped the garden; it's still producing and teaching under the care of Bienvenida Mesa, who works for the Richmond nonprofit, Urban Tilth.

Alongside her projects there's a plot or two to spare, and Saeng and Kert Dohngdara, a Lao couple in their 70s keep up the tradition of raising Southeast Asian crops in the exotic soil of West Contra Costa County.

Unexpected ingredients like rattan (only the shoots), water buffalo hide (yes, hide) and giant water bug (reputedly tastes like gorgonzola) turn up.

Some familiar plants play unfamiliar roles in Lao cuisine: "You cook the roots of lemongrass like onion, with shrimp."

Dohngdara sometimes recruits his children and grandchildren (his oldest son is 55) to help weed and harvest, but he and Saeng keep their hands in: "It's better than sitting at home watching TV."