Skip to content

A-GONG'S TABLE

Laurent Hsia George Lee

Vegan Recipes from a Taiwanese Home

At just nineteen years old, George Lee (aka Chez Jorge on Instagram and TikTok) captivated social media audiences with his brilliant and simple solutions for veganizing the cuisine of his homeland Taiwan. And now, in this collection of more than ninety recipes, including breakfasts, small eats, soups, big sharing plates, and traditional festival dishes, George reveals all the tips and tricks for making outstandingly flavorful plant-based versions of the Taiwanese dishes you already, or soon will, know and love.
George spent the first eighteen years of his life eating meat, growing up on Taiwanese home cooking and street foods. His journey to going plant-based and connecting with his ancestral roots all ties back to his a-gong (grandfather). Following his a-gong's death, George's family turned to Buddhism to walk through their grief of losing him and abstained from eating meat for forty-nine days. For George, this practice turned into a life change. He wasn't ready to part with his favorite meat dishes, so he came up with veganized versions without sacrificing flavor or texture. A-GONG'S TABLE is not only a celebration of the forms vegan Taiwanese food has taken on, but also a reimagination of what it can become. George Lee is a Taiwanese cook, food writer, and self-taught photographer and videographer. He is the creator of the Chez Jorge food blog and social media accounts. He is a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu Paris and is currently studying biochemistry at University of California, Berkeley.
Available products
Book

Published 2024-04-30 by Ten Speed Press

Comments

Beyond the thoughtful canon of recipes, A-Gong's Table captures the story of a place, revealing snapshots that feel fleeting and timeless all at once. This is a beautiful love letter to Taiwan and a quietly uncompromising work of documentation.

George Lee's book, A-Gong's Table, is written with incredible heart, knowledge, and generosity. He invites you into his family's Taiwanese kitchen and soon, you, too, are dreaming about sweet fermented rice, salt-preserved vegetables, and flaky toon pancakes.

For a young author, this enticing story - centered on his stern yet beloved grandfather - is an astonishingly accomplished exploration of flavors, ingredients, and traditions.

Complex Chinese: Akker Publishing

Never before has a cookbook made me cry with the tender poetry of its pages, where each recipe is a miracle of shadow and light, salt and sunbath, essence and depth. With profound grace and attunement, A-Gong's Table alchemizes memory, history, language, and the body in order to unearth the abundant offering of nourishment and beauty in every detail, invoking our longing for 'the gentle sweet aftertaste that lingers at the back of the tongue' and bringing us home.