(gentle music) - When you think of Central Wisconsin, you don't think of Asian agriculture.

But 12% of the population of Wausau is Asian, largely as a result of Hmong immigration.

It was a Taiwanese family that realized that forests like this one outside of town were a natural environment for ginseng, the root fabled for its life-giving properties.

(gentle music) (upbeat music continues) (leaves rustling) - This is a mature plant.

- Okay.

(twigs rustling) - Or a more mature plant.

You really don't know how old it is until you dig it up.

- Uh-huh.

- But you see how the plant has evolved and changed?

This is the seed stem.

- Uh-huh.

- So when we go out to when you saw it in the field, these would normally be full of seeds.

Here in the woods, you only get one or two.

And this is actually a seed.

- Wow.

- That's a ginseng seed that fell from that plant.

- Really?

- And that's how these other small plants germinate.

So try not to disturb this baby one here and maybe they'll germinate.

- Oh yeah.

- See, you'll see what happens is that that seed will just kind of drop somewhere in the vicinity, like the one that you picked up.

And then it'll just germinate after a year or two.

Helps when you get some rain because the soil's all nice and loose.

- It feels sizable.

- Well.

You never know.

That's the, it's like, that's the beauty of foraging.

- That's the fun of foraging.

I think everybody's heard of ginseng.

Most people have, and most people know it's good for you.

But why?

- Ginseng is an adaptogen, it helps your body adapt to the daily stresses that we put on it.

And we all lead stressful lives.

Probably more stressful now than ever before.

And so the, the adaptogenic qualities of it help your body kind of feel like you have more energy, feel that you're well, more well rested.

We lead such lives that are so much up and down in both stress, but also our cycles.

We don't sleep well at night because we're too busy looking at our phones.

We get up in the morning, we're tired.

And so we put caffeine and sugar and all these other products into our body hoping that we're going to change the way that we feel when in reality you need medicinal products like ginseng to help your body to, in some ways, detoxify and get rid of some of the bad aspects of our daily behavior and habits and dietary.

- So would you call it a detoxifier?

- I wouldn't call it a detoxifier.

It's a tonifer.

- Tonifer.

- It tonifies your body.

The idea is that by taking ginseng you can help your body rebalance itself.

Oh, you see that?

- Yes.

Oh.

- That's why I just loosened the soil around it.

- Uh huh.

- Oh there's your seed.

- Oh, There's my seed.

- Watch out for your seed.

This one is probably, my guess is, over 10 because it's starting to drop this next generation here.

- This is over 10 years old.

- [Will] Over 10 years old to grow like that big.

- That's tiny, that's like an inch.

- Yeah, that's well over 10 years.

- It's a thumb.

It's just a thumb basically.

- Yeah.

And this is the next generation.

So it's dropping this next generation taproot here.

This is how you get multi-generation roots.

It comes from this rhizome.

So this generation is pretty much done.

You could replant this part here if you wanted to.

- But you can still use it, right?

- Yeah.

- Oh, okay, fantastic.

- So that's probably at at least a 10, maybe a 15-year-old ginseng root.

Asian ginseng is different medicinally than American ginseng.

Asian ginseng is Yang, (speaking in foreign language), it's hot, fiery, stimulating, male.

American ginseng in Yin.

Cooling, tonifying, feminine, or female.

Well, there's also certain aspects of ginseng that mimic human life.

So in the wild, these plants can grow to a hundred years, like humans.

- Right.

- They don't reach maturity and generate seeds typically until about 15 years of age.

Like humans.

- Just like humans.

- The seed, when it drops and sits in the soil, it doesn't germinate the next year.

It takes nine months of stratification in order for that seed to emerge.

- Just like humans.

- Like humans.

And so there's a lot of parts of the ginseng reproductive cycle that are very similar to humans and so I think that's one reason why it's so treasured in Chinese culture.

- And it's for your longevity.

- For your longevity.

- And your vitality.

- Yep.

- For your energy, for your Qi.

- Yep, for your Qi.

- Yeah, great.

Taking this home with me.

- Okay.

Yeah, so the natural conditions for wild ginseng tend to be a hardwood forest like this.

And so especially Native American hardwoods, maple, oak, sometimes walnut, those types of deciduous trees where the leaves drop because the ginseng seeds, they rely on that leaf cover to cover up the seeds that you saw.

- This is a lot of fun.

- Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

And you know, after a really busy day at the office or to avoid the office, sometimes?

It's nice to just come out here and, you know, just be at peace with nature for an hour.

- How did your family come to Wisconsin and basically grow the industry?

- My dad came to the United States in 1969 to study social work.

As he was working for the government, the state government as a social worker, one of his coworkers said, "Oh, Paul, you know, you're Chinese?"

My dad's like, "I'm Taiwanese, but sure, Chinese."

"You must know about ginseng."

And he ended up buying a couple pounds of that ginseng from a local farmer and sending it home to his mother, my grandmother.

- Oh.

- And she had given birth to 14 kids.

(Danielle gasps) and he's the tenth of 14.

And when he sent it home, his father, my grandfather, wrote a letter back saying, the ginseng works send more.

- In what way?

- She had had some diabetic and other conditions.

She had had some health problems over time.

And when he went back home after taking the ginseng he says that, you know, she had health and vigor.

Her complexion had changed.

She looked healthier, she could eat an entire meal.

He became a believer in the product.

And that belief, when he came back to the US after seeing his parents made him decide to get into the ginseng business.

- He's made such an impact by really growing the ginseng scene in America.

You get a sense of how impressive the family's success in ginseng cultivation has been when you visit the sprawling processing factory where I get a lesson in the differences between Asian and American ginseng.

(light music) - So Danielle, welcome to our farm operating building where we wash and process all of the fresh ginseng.

Wisconsin produces about a million pounds of dried ginseng a year.

- Okay, so - So that's about three million, - you guys are doing like most of it.

- So it's about 3 million pounds of fresh.

Because it dries down about three to one.

- Right.

- And so we are processing about a third, 25 to 30% of the fresh ginseng will come through our facility here.

- That's amazing.

- Annually.

- That's huge.

(light music) So what we're doing here is we're picking up the culls and the rotten roots.

- This is moving - And the foreign material, yep.

- really fast.

- So like this would go out?

- Yes, that would go out.

- Okay.

- Pull that one out, and stuff like this.

- Part of the reason that you're able to have this successful enterprise, is because of the Hmong refugee population?

- Yeah, this industry would probably be in decline or dead if we didn't have the influx Hmong, Hmong refugees who ended up being the labor in the field and on the farm for the last 20 or 30 years.

So the American ginseng is much more calming and cooling and tonifying.

And so it requires long term usage.

Asian ginseng is much more stimulating.

It's heating.

And so that's used a lot in energy drinks.

It's used a lot in diet pills.

Because it immediately stimulate your circulatory system and immediately accelerates your heart rate.

So you can feel it.

- I'm mesmerized by how beautiful these ginseng roots are.

- This would be the main taproot that you see here in the middle.

And you can age these roots based on the root scars by these neck scars.

- So that's probably twenty-five years old.

- This one's, oh no.

This one's probably over 80 years old.

- 80 years old, wow.

- Because each one of these subsequent generations drops off roughly just like humans, every 15 or so years.

This was actually a clear liquor originally.

- Oh.

- A lot of people use bajo, or vodka.

- Oh, yes.

And we use vodka here in the US because it's more readily available.

- Uh-huh.

- And so this was originally clear.

- Uh-huh.

- And what you find over time is you get this beautiful gold color in the ginseng liquor, where the, because of the active ingredients in the ginseng infuse into the alcohol.

The traditional vodkas are made from potatoes.

And that's a root vegetable.

Ginseng is a root vegetable.

If it has enough sugar and starch and you add a yeast to it and heat, it will ferment.

And so you can ferment ginseng.

Actually a lot of, especially Southern Chinese people will consume medicinal alcohols or medicinal liquors.

So when we're talking about taking ginseng daily, they take a shot of a medicinal liquor that has ginseng and other herbs So we're at Great Northern Distillery in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, about 30 miles south of Wausau.

The owner and founder tries to source within a hundred miles.

He asked if we could do a ginseng whiskey.

And so we've actually created an American ginseng bourbon whiskey.

So Danielle, this is Brian.

- Hi Danielle.

- Hi Brian.

- So nice to meet you.

- Good to meet you.

Thanks for coming to Steven's Point.

- No, what an honor, I heard about this ginseng whiskey and I had to come and check it out myself.

- Yeah, we've been really happy with the development of the product that we've made in partnership with Hsu's Ginseng.

And really this product has gone around the world.

We've sold quite a bit of it in Taiwan, in LA, and then right here in Wisconsin.

So this is our American ginseng whiskey.

- Uh-huh.

- We take a bourbon and infuse it with fresh ginseng roots.

You'll notice that it pairs very well with the sweetness of bourbon because instead of using dried ginseng, we're using fresh ginseng.

So we get the fresh root flavor that is earthy- - It's delicious.

- And astringent, but also slightly sweet.

- Right.

- That you just lose when the ginseng is dried.

The bourbon pairs very well because it's a corn based whiskey.

- Uh-huh.

- And bourbon is slightly sweeter than most other whiskeys - Yeah, we tried a number of different spirits.

We tried clear spirits.

We tried, we thought maybe gin would work because it's more botanical.

And it's really difficult given the earthiness and the herbaceousness of ginseng to find a good spirit that it pairs with.

And then when you really think about what we're trying to create here, it's something that's uniquely American, right?

Because this is American ginseng.

And what spirit is America probably most well known for?

It's probably bourbon.

You know, we're really fortunate here in Wisconsin to have fantastic agriculture within that a hundred mile radius of Great Northern.

And whether it's potatoes or cranberries or ginseng, you know, we're known worldwide for, for those products.

And we've got a great climate for growing these very unique and delicious ingredients.

- And I can feel the, I can feel the ginseng.

(laughs) - So you grew up basically with ginseng in your blood.

- Anyone who grows up on a farm, they tell you, you know, you send your kids off and hope that they don't come back to the farm.

And I think that was part of my dad's hope is that he wanted me to go to college and have a life and experience that wasn't based on the farm.

So I actually went and worked for General Mills, ended up working for them for over a decade.

- So why did you come back?

- It's a great question.

That is a great question.

I ask myself that every now and then.

(light music) - Flour, baking soda, can I dump it in?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- The baking powder.

- Baking powder.

- And the salt is in there.

- I know it's a lot of hard work, but would you like to see your daughters follow in your footsteps?

- Oh, I teach my children hard work.

So I try to bring them out to the farm.

They actually come in sometimes on their days off from school or on weekends to help us with packaging and other things.

And I think it teaches kids ethic, work ethic.

- Absolutely.

- I think nowadays, you know, people talk about the changing workforce.

And it's not just the changing workforce I think we have a changing definition of what work is because it's so encompassing.

- You can.

- Oh, can I, thank you, wow.

- Yeah.

- You don't wanna put too much, right?

Because when it bakes it, then it all pops out.

- Yeah, mm-hmm.

- Wow.

Amazing.

(tray clatters) Okay, there we go.

- It takes 22 minutes to bake.

- Daddy's gonna make dinner now, I think.

- So we're gonna make the seafood porridge, the rice kanji.

- Okay.

- And the little threads.

- I really love to get a sense of what it was like growing up here as one of the only Asians, right?

In Wisconsin.

- As kids, you know, you've tried to find friends who accepted you for who you were.

But I would say my family members and I we all had experiences that were probably more typical of that time in that era 20, 30 years ago when there wasn't a lot of diversity here.

It was tougher, I mean, you had instances of racism, you had instances where you felt discriminated against.

- Mm-hmm.

- But you tried not to let that affect you.

And it's hard.

But I think that's part of the assimilation.

That's part of the journey that we're on as Asian immigrants.

(rice sizzling) - There, whir!

Smells good.

Well I like how you're making this old school style instead of like dumping it into a rice cooker.

- (laughs) That would be the shortcut way.

This is the ginseng chicken soup.

- Ooh.

- And so we add the ginseng root and fiber, goji berry, or gojitsu, hong zao or red date, and then long-yen or longan, the dried fruit.

And then also there's some lotus seeds in here.

- You didn't add any soy sauce or anything.

- No soy sauce, nothing.

This is just chicken, water, the herbs, some salt.

- It tastes like home too.

- It tastes like home.

- Yes, it tastes, it so sweet from the date actually.

- Yeah, the date and the long-yen, yeah.

- You wouldn't expect that.

And then, it's (speaks foreign language) How do you say that, it's like the flavor is so concentrated.

- Concentrated, yep.

- Because of the chicken.

- Yep.

- And the slow cooking process.

It's delicious.

- Ginseng is such a traditional product.

And from a traditional Asian culture, I think every parent's Asian American dream when they come to the US is to build a business or something that they can pass on to their kids.

(light music) (upbeat music) - Like the Hsu's, the Osinski family found itself with an ideal spot for farming just off of their backyard in Greenport Harbor on Long Island.

It was a perfect spot to cultivate oysters and raise an oyster farming family.

(upbeat music) (door creaks) - That's so nice.

(laughs) - What do you mean?

- So it's almost low tide now and we're gonna go in, because this Australian long line system, you have to get in and pick the baskets off the lines.

So we wanna do that before the tide starts coming in.

- When he tells you up, press up, and when he tells you down, press down.

- Okay.

- And if you're having a problem, just hit the red, and it'll emergency stop.

There's a cage of oysters that we put down there, I guess since when it was warmer in September.

- Uh-huh.

- So they should be market size now.

(winch grinding) - Oh.

- Help her.

- Oh, I see now.

(chain creaks) - Okay, drop, drop.

Cut out.

- And you want me to undo these ties?

I've never done anything like this before.

I've only eaten oysters and shucked them.

(chain rattling) (winch grinding) - Okay, I remember up and down.

- You can see one of the benefits of oyster cultivation.

- Oh.

- Is you provide a habitat for small fish.

These will go to like, Le Bernardin, Craft.

Who else gets these?

- They like small oysters generally?

- Red, yes.

Most people like small oysters.

- Huh, why is that?

- Yes.

- Do they have more flavor?

- No, they don't, and they have less meat.

Because the whole oyster experience now is an appetizer.

It's all about drinking, and an appetizer.

And the smaller ones look nice on the plate.

They don't fill you up so you'll order more things.

- Oh.

- But they serve the function of... (oysters clattering) - Of you ordering wine.

- Susanna and her brother Mercator were both integral in building the business.

And Susanna, with her background in biology and economics from Cornell University is committed to preserving what her parents, Michael and Isabel have created.

She also has an eye on the future of a local variety, the Widow's Hole Oyster.

- So it's all the one species here across the east coast, whether you're up in Maine, New York, or even down in Florida.

It's our Eastern oyster, the Crassostrea Virginica.

But oysters are filter feeders, right?

They're bio valves that will eat what's in the water.

So this the density of the water, so that salinity, just the types of algees that grow in the water, what's all there can influence your flavor.

So here, right up in the northeast, you'll get a really briny, a really salty, flavorful animal.

And then as you move around, if you go to the west coast and you eat that same species, because the west coast is a little less in salinity level they'll be a little sweeter, sometimes less salty.

And so yeah, they have all these kind of, different flavor profiles.

- So there's only one type of oyster, because you always hear about, like- - So here on the east coast, - Uh-huh?

- Commercially farmed, you can only legally grow this eastern oyster.

Right?

- And so people have this misconception that oysters are best in the summer on the beach with a glass of wine.

- Yeah, you think sea side, - So what's the reality?

- eating oysters, but, it actually, there's kind of this old tale of, only eat oysters that the month's end in an R or like some rewording of that.

And, right, when you think about you have April, May, June, July, October, right?

Or September, October, right?

As you get into the fall, September, October, you get your R months.

But June, July, August, your peak months of your summer, they don't end in R. And that's because oysters spawn in the summer.

So there's two reasons, oysters spawn in the summer, so that's why they're gonna be a little bit thinner.

Because instead of using their energy to grow and store food for the hibernating, they're growing or they're eating and storing food to produce their gonads.

So the egg and the sperm that they will then release out into the water.

Just a rock there.

- How do you know so much about oysters?

- I've been doing this since I was four.

(laughs) - So you grew up on this farm?

- I grew up on the farm, I mean, I remember being in first grade and my parents would, we would be out in the boat and they would have me like unclip the pins because I was too small to do things and they didn't want me to get in the way.

They'd be like, "Oh, we need you to put this over here."

Or I'd like, count out the oysters.

And one of the big things was when we were learning to like add and multiply?

They'd be like, "Get groups of five and count out loud."

So we'd be like, counting, and then you'd be like, - Is your mom Chinese by any chance?

- Five!

(laughs) And then if you messed out and she's like, "Now do it by groups of seven," which is like, that's not easy.

But, I know - How fun.

Childhood memories.

- my multiplication tables quite well.

(laughs) So we soon as we got big enough that we weren't just gonna fall over the boat, we would start helping them with, you know, loading cages and counting and sorting and moving things, running back and forth when they needed to do the important things, they'd be like, "We need more gear.

We need you to rinse this, clean this, count that."

And then eventually, kind of when we were, you know, 10, 12 later in elementary school, they'd actually have us go out on the boat and do most of the work that's more physically active so that they could either go inside and do other work for the business, invoices, you know, all the paperwork type of things.

Or they would do the sorting and we would be putting things back out, bringing things back in.

When they say family farm, this was family farm - Right.

- in all of its bits.

We were, we do the deliveries ourselves, the invoices.

My dad's the one that markets all of the restaurants.

My mom drives the van, my dad does deliveries.

And when my brother and I helped out with that too, we would help with the deliveries, and the sorting, all the maintenance, that's all, all of us.

You're studying more about shellfish and oysters.

- Yeah, so I, my brother went off do engineering.

He helped with building a lot of this stuff.

- That's amazing.

- And, I went more on the farming side of things.

So I really like doing this, it does, it keeps me active when you really don't wanna do anything.

I also, I just love being out in the water.

I grew up here, every day.

- Yes.

- Weekends, holidays, it was out here, I loved it.

And my parents, you know, kind of jokingly, they were like, oh you know, someone will take all over the farm.

But then as I got older, I started thinking about college.

I was like, you know what?

I would be perfectly happy taking over the farm.

I love what I do, I've seen how much work, not only have my parents put into it, but my brother and myself, how much we've expanded it over the years.

And I also see so much more potential.

And I think they've done something amazing.

It's been successful.

- Yeah.

They've both done really well and I want to do more of that for them.

I studied biology and business, it wasn't as, it was called an interdisciplinary studies major but I combined my school's biology and business majors in hopes that I could learn a little bit more about the science and what the animals do biologically and anatomically, not just how to grow them.

And then on the business side, because my dad's always been the one kind of marketing and sales and everything, I kind of wanted to get a little bit more of a background into that, to understand that aspect more.

(light music) (light music continues) (light music continues) (traps clatter) - We've made lots of kimchi on "Lucky Chow", but making it with oysters just pulled from the Atlantic was a first.

What better demonstration could there be of the mixing of American and Asian roots?

Have you been making it for a long time?

- We make it off and on because when we have a surplus oysters, it's a nice way to use up our oysters.

- And then what is this, this is the, the radish.

- Radish.

- Can I mix it in?

- Yeah, sure.

- Oh, okay.

That'd be nice, thank you.

- And this has the oyster liquor.

- Yeah, and then we have the oysters ready to go.

- Well, Greenport was the oyster capital of New York.

- So what made you decide to bring back oyster farming to this area?

Before you discovered all this underwater land were you interested in oyster farming?

- I had never even thought of it.

I ate oysters and that was it.

- So that was so adventurous and brave of you two.

How did you learn how to become oyster farmers?

- Oh, very trial and error.

We have- - Killing a lot of oysters.

- We have killed a lot of oysters.

In fact, that's one reason we make kimchi.

- For one, you don't find too many oyster farms and you don't find too many family oyster farms.

So people always ask questions about like, "Well what do you do?"

It's like, "Oh, we have an oyster farm."

And it's always like a story that interests people and they always want to know more.

So it's definitely a unique background.

- That's amazing.

Mom, would you say that that's all worthwhile having this farm?

(Isabel laughs) - Well, well, well?

- Theoretically it's been great.

(ladies laughing) - Daily, meh.

- Alright, so what's the difference here?

- Oh, did you chop up the oysters?

- This is the new kimchi and that's the old kimchi.

- Did you chop enough?

- Oh.

- It's my recipe.

- Very good.

- Oyster kimchi.

The first time we - It's so good.

- had a batch like this.

- I can definitely taste the brine.

(Danielle cheering) - You'll need it going in.

(light music) (light music continues)