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.
A-Gong \'s Table follows the rhythm of their footsteps: a pulse that takes you quietly through the book and through Taiwan, from morning to night.. always afoot, traveling. . .
Like the grandpa who slung a bag of apples along the zebra crossing to exit the morning market, or the old couple on the bus in black and white, sitting side by side and peering forward, the two found themselves .
Together, they sought out the foods and places tied to their memories growing up.
While writing this book, George wandered all over Taiwan with his friend Laurent Hsia, who took photos along the way.
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.
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.
Years later, he revisited the lessons and pieced them into the story of his family\'s cooking.
For a hundred days, they ate at the monastery and the nuns there taught him to cook.
In observation of the death, he and his family undertook a set of Buddhist funeral customs and abstained from eating meat.
He took part in the myriad Taiwanese food traditions his A-Gong nurtured, until he was seventeen, when his A-Gong passed.
George Lee grew up with his A-Gong (grandfather) in the quiet refuge of Tamsui, Taiwan.
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
