Asian American chef Naomi Larsen opens up about her custard business in Salt Lake City. In step with the times, she brought a popular Japanese dessert here, to the place she fits in and calls it home.

Story and photos by LEYRE CASARIN

A long way has already been done, but a long way still needs to be done. Women in business have often had to struggle to reach important positions.

Today, many companies can boast gender diversity within them, but the pink power is still not enough, especially within minorities. This is a demonstration of how much the business world has to work to achieve true equality.

There is still a lot to do to enhance females in business even if in the past years it has grown, from 77,800 in 2015 to 80,092 in 2019, according to The Salt Lake Tribune article published in 2021.

And what about double-minority? Female and Asian Americans, for example.

Asian American female chef, Naomi Larsen, tells her story and her business.

She was born and raised in Japan and came to the U.S. when she was only 21 to study. Her dream was to go back and open an import retro business. “I love American retro style, especially the 1950s and 1960s,” she said, and laughing she added, “but this dream disappeared.”

With time, perspectives changed, and Larsen is happy to call Salt Lake City and Utah her home. She identifies herself as an American since she got her citizenship about 25 years ago, and an immigrant. 

The transition wasn’t too bad for her. “There were some minor cultural shocks, but I am fitting here much better than in Japan,” she said in a Zoom interview. “I never felt Japan was my home. Is it terrible to say? I never fit in that country,” she added in an email. 

Larsen said she suffered the fact that Japanese people say one thing and you have to know nine other meanings for that thing, and she couldn’t do that. It’s easier for her here, even if at the beginning her biggest struggle in the U.S. was the language. 

“I remember one time, after three months I was in the U.S., I had a breakdown and just cried. I was at a friend’s house and I just locked myself in the bathroom and started crying for hours because I didn’t understand what they were saying,” she said.

Besides the new language, different culture, and different food, Larsen made her way and her impact in Salt Lake City.

About eight years ago, Larsen and her Japanese friend, Ai Levy, started a Bento business.

“Both of us had been working in the restaurant industry for a long time but that was the first time we started our own,” she said in the interview over Zoom. And she added, “We were getting sick of working for others.”

But when her friend moved out of state, she couldn’t keep Bento by herself. So, she thought, “What is the one thing I can keep doing by myself?” The answer is the Japanese-style custard and her business, Prin-Ya Custard.

But what is the Japanese custard? Do you know about it?

Japanese custard is an intriguing dessert, simple to prepare but really effective. It is characterized by the classic flavor of the combination of simple ingredients such as eggs, milk, sugar. Ideal for an original snack or as an elegant end to a meal, Larsen’s Japanese-style custard offers a dense and creamy consistency that is truly irresistible.

“I decided to offer the Japanese-style custard because we have flan here and it is different. I couldn’t find the same thing here, so I thought I would make it and introduce it here to Salt Lake City,” she said.

It is one of the most popular desserts in Japan and, there, they could combine it in fancy ways too.

Larsen remembered the custard as a treat to herself when she was young. “In Japan, when I was going to cafés or restaurants, I was just getting the custard arranged in a fancy glass or with fruits.”

As simple as it might seem, the traditional baked custard has a silky soft texture. That caramelized sugar at the bottom is a must, but in a lot of places they don’t have that, Larsen said. It has a mild sweetness and her favorite flavor is cappuccino because she loves coffee. “My husband eats it almost every day,” she said.

The difference between the Japanese custard and the one she makes here is the texture, but ingredients are really just milk and eggs and they are not really “Japanese ingredients,” she said.

She selects local eggs and fruits from the market and other vendors and she tries to use as many local ingredients as she can. 

“It all started with one traditional custard and vegan version because the veganism was growing fast here and with that, it became easier to have different flavors, so I kept making them,” she said.

She also said she packages the dessert in jar containers, so the customer can flip it and put it on a plate and garnish it as they please. “Customers get surprised when they tried the vegan one, because of the creaminess. They can’t believe it’s vegan.”

Larsen humbly doesn’t recognize herself as a real chef, but as a person who was confident enough to make this dessert and decided to just do it.

She is a hope for a lot of Asian Americans and females who want to live in the US or open their own business, or startup company. 

“I never thought it was difficult to start a business, as a minority. Although I never applied for any real jobs, I learned that there are many business loans, grants, and aids available for minority people who want to start a business. I am especially grateful for Spice Kitchen and IRC (International Rescue Committee) for providing us the help we need,” Larsen said.

Spice Kitchen Incubator, a project of the IRC that provides help, guidance and support for those who want to start a business in Utah, talks about Prin-Ya Custard: “She strives toward less waste and an ecologically friendly business model. Custards come in a reusable glass jar that can be returned for credit at Hello Bulk Market.”

The onset of the pandemic surely affected her business negatively. Before the pandemic, she had seven retail stores and restaurants carrying her products, but after that, most of them had to shut down their business.

In 2020, food sampling was prohibited in farmers markets where she had a booth. “Due to the pandemic, it was difficult to sell products without having customers to taste them,” she said.

The pandemic also caused a lot of problems regarding major supply chains. All small businesses suffered. “Even now it’s still hard to find certain ingredients and containers,” she said.

On an ordinary day, without us expecting it, life has changed. The simplest habits, like having a coffee with your friend, going out with your partner, hugging someone you love, have become forbidden. And so, we found ourselves living in the present and in a bubble, uncertain about the future but sure of only one thing: moving forward.

And chef Naomi Larsen, even if she doesn’t refer to herself in that way, kept going.

One way of doing that was taking advantage of technology to connect with customers and spread the love for her custard.

“I learned several tricks to post as effectively, like what time to post, what hashtags to use, which photos, etc., but being an older generation, it takes a lot of effort for me,” she said.

Simple to say, difficult to do. It is difficult to create yourself as a female Asian American entrepreneur, especially during the pandemic. If it is true that change is the only certainty in life, it is just as hard to get used to it.

Rethinking in a new perspective, however, is the only possible way. At least now, at least until this war against coronavirus is won. And this is what Naomi Larsen did with her custard business, Prin-Ya.

Filed under: Asian American, Food & Restaurants, Immigrants & Refugees, Profiles, Small Business |