A rendering of food through the memories of family and of home: over ninety plant-based recipes from George Lee, the creator of Chez Jorge, with Laurent Hsia’s images of Taiwan.
“An astonishingly accomplished exploration of flavors, ingredients, and traditions.”—Katy Hui-wen Hung (洪惠文), co-author of A Culinary History of Taipei: Beyond Pork and Ponlai
“This is a beautiful love letter to Taiwan and a quietly uncompromising work of documentation.”—Hannah Che, author of The Vegan Chinese Kitchen
George Lee grew up with his A-Gong (grandfather) in the quiet refuge of Tamsui, Taiwan. He took part in the myriad Taiwanese food traditions his A-Gong nurtured, until he was seventeen, when his A-Gong passed. In observation of the death, he and his family undertook a set of Buddhist funeral customs and abstained from eating meat. For a hundred days, they ate at the monastery and the nuns there taught him to cook.
Years later, he revisited the lessons and pieced them into the story of his family’s cooking. Some recipes he shares here are directly from childhood: Han-tsî-bê, an everyday breakfast congee floating with fist-size chunks of golden sweet potatoes, and the quintessential preserve Tshài-póo, crunchy strips of sun-dried daikon radish that salt in the air for a few days in January. Others tread the boundaries between old and new, such as Sòo-lóo-pn̄g, a meatless rendition of the hand-cut pork bits his mom braised in soy sauce and ladled over rice.
