The Korean Vegan | Joanne Lee Molinaro
The Korean Vegan Cookbook: Reflections and Recipes from Omma's Kitchen
By Joanne Lee Molinaro
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Intro: Welcome to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery by the Book with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City, sitting at her dining room table, talking to cookbook authors.
Joanne Lee Moli...: I am Joanne Lee Molinaro, and my cookbook is The Korean Vegan Cookbook.
Suzy Chase: Before I dive into this book, I'd like to thank my new sponsor, Bloomist. Bloomist creates and curates simple, sustainable products that inspire you to design a calm natural refuge at home. I'm excited because they've just introduced a new tabletop and kitchen collection that's truly stunning. Surround yourself with beautiful elements of nature when you're cooking dining and entertaining and make nature home. Visit bloomist.com and use the code cookery 20 to get 20% off your first purchase or click the link in the show notes.
Suzy Chase: Now on with the show. This cookbook is a collection of stories, plus 80 recipes veganized versions of your favorite foods growing up. Publishers Weekly named The Korean Vegan, one of the best debut cookbooks of fall 2021. How incredible does that feel?
Joanne Lee Moli...: It's surreal Suzy. To be honest I never would have guessed in a million years, particularly as I was sitting there writing briefs and motions that my life would somehow include a cookbook much less one that Publishers Weekly likes. It's incredibly exciting and very, very rewarding as I'm sure you can imagine a lot of hard work and sweat and tears went into this cookbook. So to have it so well received is pretty amazing.
Suzy Chase: To you intimacy, isn't only sharing a recipe. It's also the idea of sharing stories surrounding this recipe, engaging people in conversation. How did telling life stories while preparing food on TikTok come about?
Joanne Lee Moli...: Well, there wasn't like one big thing that pushed me towards incorporating these stories onto my videos. But I think there were a couple of primary drivers. In 2017, I started sharing stories about my family with the hope that people would have a better understanding or at least appreciation for the immigrant story in the United States. If you like to eat food from Korea, then perhaps you'd also be interested in the people in stories from Korea here in the United States.
Joanne Lee Moli...: I then started incorporating those stories in my TikTok videos for... Some of them were practical reasons, very hard to cram a full recipe into a 60 second video. It sounded very chaotic for me to try. So I was like, "All right, let's just leave the recipe for subtitles or something else, or my vlog and maybe use that space and that time for something that isn't as chaotic, that's actually the opposite of chaotic. It's immersive. It takes you away. It's serene. It calms you down." And I think the other part of it was because of COVID I was no longer able to host dinner parties, which is the perfect place to share stories over food. So I decided to make it virtual.
Suzy Chase: So the last five years have been a wild ride for you. How do you juggle being an attorney and a content creator, two major full-time jobs?
Joanne Lee Moli...: Yeah, it has been like you said, a very wild ride, but for me, I took it step by step. It wasn't like one day I was lawyer next day I was full-time content creator. It was more just like, "Hey, I have some spare time." And during my spare time, instead of playing golf or doing any number of other things, I would say, "Well, why not just throw my phone up against the wall and create something or why not take a picture of this food and post it on Instagram." So I really did it at a very humane pace for, I would say four years. It wasn't until I started my TikTok last summer when things got accelerated pretty much beyond my control. And it take some time for me to reconfigure my schedule and my life in order to make room for things.
Suzy Chase: So, you started The Korean Vegan Food Blog in 2016 when you went vegan and you wanted to veganize Korean food. Talk about how Korean food has a great history when it comes to not only Korean barbecue, but vegetables and noodles and rice and how it's been a bit of a struggle for you in terms of perception by the Korean community.
Joanne Lee Moli...: So this is a topic, Suzy, that is very near and dear to my heart because it's been evolving over time, both from my perspective. And I think also from the plant-based perspective and certainly from the perspective of Korean diaspora, but I think in general, here in the United States, a lot of people associate Korean cuisine with grilled meat, Korean barbecue. Because that's the most popular way of eating Korean food here in the United States. But the truth is that growing up, we didn't eat Korean barbecue very often. It's like, how often do people go out for a big steak meal, here in the US? Well, it's for special occasions, it's for birthdays, it's for graduation. And it was the same thing for Korean barbecue in my household. More often we were eating very humble food rice with vegetables, soybean stew, mung bean sprouts, things like that, which is a very highly plant-based plant centric diet.
Joanne Lee Moli...: But we forget all of that when we think about the fun food, the food that you get to eat, when it's your birthday. I think also more broadly speaking South Korea is composed of a large number of Buddhists and Buddhists in Korea generally tend to eat a vegetarian or a largely vegan diet. So there's this large swath of people in South Korea who have been eating plant-based for generations and generations. And that tradition of cuisine certainly infiltrates everyday cuisine in South Korea. And even here in the United States. I think sometimes the struggle is that people view me as perhaps being inauthentic or not true to my roots. Because I'm eating in a way that they view as perhaps not as Korean as I could be. And of course The Korean Vegan, one of its main purposes is to show people you can eat in a way that's consistent with your values and also consistent with your traditions and heritage.
Suzy Chase: So one of the things that's consistent with Korean cuisine is fish sauce, but you have a fishy sauce. Can you describe that?
Joanne Lee Moli...: One of the first things that I was really nervous about when I went vegan was what am I going to do about kimchi? For me, and I think for many Korean people, there's really nothing more synonymous with Korean-ness than kimchi. People think barbecuing and bulgogi for me, it's kimchi and kimchi is sort of delicious flavor and the pickling is in some ways a function of the fish sauce and the shrimp paste that's added to traditional kimchi recipes. And I was like, "Oh, what am I going to do? I can't eat that anymore. How am I going to make really, really good kimchi?" So I discovered that, well, some of it is about facilitating the fermentation process, certainly when you add fish sauce and when you're add shrimp paste it pickles faster. But I was like, "I don't care about the amount of time that it takes to pickle. I'll just leave it out, you know, at room temperature for longer than average." But I do want sort of that flavor. So I decided to create a fishy sauce that has the flavors of the sea, if you will, without animal products in it. I remember I was making kimchi with my mom a couple of months ago for... We were making a kimchi recipe video for everyone who pre-orders a copy of the book. And she was tasting the fish sauce that I had made, the fishy sauce. And she was like, "This is really good. How did you make this? This is pretty incredible." So I was very impressed with myself.
Suzy Chase: That's amazing. So what's the main ingredient in the fishy sauce. What makes it fishy?
Joanne Lee Moli...: I think there are a lot of things in there that actually help with that. Obviously dashima, which is dried kelp is a very big component of the fishy sauce. Mushrooms are also really important. You'd be surprised how seafoody certain mushrooms can taste. And there are a couple of vinegars in there. And the reason I thought of vinegar was because when I was a little girl and I'd be going through my mom's pantry, I'd get that big, whoa, what is that smell? And of course it was the big bottle of fish sauce that my mom had. And sometimes when I go into my vinegar cabinet, I have the same reaction. I'm like, there's something to this vinegar that's very similar to the fish sauce my mom used to keep in her pantry.
Suzy Chase: It's crazy because fish sauce smells awful, but it tastes so good.
Joanne Lee Moli...: I know it adds tremendous flavor. It's like salt in many ways. It enhances the flavors of the things around it, just because of the way that it works. And my fishy sauce is sort of designed to do the same thing.
Suzy Chase: So one of the things your fans love about you is your honesty and candor when it comes to storytelling. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about your grandmother and her kimbap recipe.
Joanne Lee Moli...: Yeah. So my grandmother, this is my father's mother, my halmeoni. She always made kimbap for everything. It was like her go-to meal, particularly when it was for while we were on the road and growing up, my parents weren't wealthy enough to afford plane trips. So we were always taking road trips. Like every summer, our vacation was to Michigan or Wisconsin Dells or Lake Geneva. And that in itself is frustrating because all of my friends are going to Florida or Cancun or some somewhere cool where they get to go on an airplane. But the worst part about the road trip was the fact that we didn't get to go to Big Boy or McDonald's or Wendy's or whatever you would find on the road. We always had to eat kimbap, which is what my grandmother packed for us so that we wouldn't have to spend extra money on food.
Joanne Lee Moli...: So I grew up hating kimbap because it signified everything that I felt was so wrong about being a Korean family, that we didn't get to go on airplane trips. We didn't get to eat Big Boy and McDonald's, and we didn't get to stay at fancy hotels. We had to stay at the cheapest motel on the road. And of course over time, particularly when I was in college and I was no longer able to just eat Korean food whenever I want. Kimbap reminded me so much of my grandmother and the amount of time that she would take to roll out each roll. And it made me not just miss the food, but it made me miss her immensely. And so now especially, 20 years after she's passed away, making kimbap is probably one of my favorite things because it reminds me so much of her
Suzy Chase: Many women, me included have a woman piling words into our head. You talked about this on your TikTok. Can you describe the voice that's in your head?
Joanne Lee Moli...: I think for me, the voice that is constantly trying to suck out all my joy is always, you need to do better. You're not working hard enough or you're not a good leader or you're not strong enough. And I think more specifically for me, you're not beautiful enough. You're not skinny enough. You're eating too much. These are the words that continuously plague me I think on a... Not just daily basis, like minute to minute basis, sometimes it's exhausting just trying to fight them off. And other times you just resign yourself to it and say, "You know what? I'm not going to try and fight them off. I'm just going to try and ignore them as much as I can and move on with my day. Find things to do in my day that preoccupy me to such a degree that I don't have to listen to those voices anymore."
Suzy Chase: I recently had a talk with Julia Turshen about this very same thing. And I think the more we talk about this, the healthier it is for women and especially our younger women.
Joanne Lee Moli...: I think one of the most rewarding aspects of The Korean Vegan is the community that has sprung up around. It was not something that I intentionally created, but sharing some of these very vulnerable moments in my life without being too afraid of being told, "Oh no, no, those voices are right. You are weak. You are not beautiful. You are not skinny enough." Instead of seeding to those voices, simply sharing that they exist with other women has been so empowering to me. Because it's made me realize I am not alone and I don't need to be alone. There may not be specific answers in the solidarity, but the solidarity in itself can be part of the answer. And that has been incredibly healing for me.
Suzy Chase: And I think you're gorgeous, but I think...
Joanne Lee Moli...: Oh thank you. That's very sweet.
Suzy Chase: But we all have that voice. We all have that, "God, you're so fat." I go to this place called Liftonic. That's a gym where you lift weights and I'm in the back because I don't want to be near the mirror.
Joanne Lee Moli...: Yeah. I hear you on that.
Suzy Chase: Its everywhere.
Joanne Lee Moli...: Oh yeah. The mirror can be sometimes your best friend or your very, very worst enemy. And I always tell young people, particularly on TikTok when they're like, "How do I love myself? How do I get past insecurities?" And I was like, "When you look at the mirror, pretend it's not, you pretend it's your little sister. Pretend it's your little brother or your daughter, and speak to that reflection the same way you would speak to them."
Suzy Chase: Yes. We give so much grace to other women that we don't give ourselves.
Joanne Lee Moli...: Totally. And that is a big problem. We need to switch that narrative really badly.
Suzy Chase: So on the other hand, I have a problem with tofu. I really want to love tofu. Oftentimes I feel like tofu is bland, which it really is. And people say the beauty of it is that it's a blank canvas, but misunderstood. How do you infuse flavor into tofu?
Joanne Lee Moli...: Well, there are a lot of technical ways that you can maximize flavor in tofu. And I can touch upon that really briefly, one way is to freeze tofu. And there is actually a chemical reaction that occurs when you freeze tofu that creates these incredible air pockets that facilitates absolute maximum absorption of any flavor that you put around it. So it literally acts like the best sponge ever so that every bite is infused with again, whatever flavor you put into the sponge. So that's one technical way that you can infuse flavor into what I agree is largely a bland protein. But I think also people forget tofu comes in multiple textures. It's not just extra firm, I think that as a vegan content creator and as a vegan recipe developer, I'm always seeing recipes that are like extra firm, extra extra firm, make it as firm as possible. Because all they're trying to do is mimic chicken and I'm like, "I don't really care about mimicking chicken." I grew up eating tofu my entire life, and I have been exposed to every variety and texture of tofu from literally the kind that barely holds itself together to so thick that it does actually taste like meat. And I think one of the beauties of tofu is trying all those different textures in a variety of different contexts. Like make yourself a delicious pudding with silken tofu or make yourself some braised tofu with medium firm tofu. Which is in my opinion, the best way to eat tofu. And then if you want something heartier like a sandwich with a really kind of chewy or meatier texture, and go ahead with the extra firm and throw that baby in the freezer to get that fibrous feeling to your protein.
Suzy Chase: That is a good tip.
Joanne Lee Moli...: Yeah, It's really good. The medium firm tofu, I have to say, especially with my braised tofu recipe in the book is phenomenal. I've made it for multiple dinner parties in the past month and everybody just eats it all up.
Suzy Chase: Over the weekend, I made your recipe for Stir Fried Mung Bean Sprouts on page 93. And you write in the cookbook, you grew up eating beans sprouts, but they're not the kind we see in Western cuisine. Can you talk a little bit about this and describe this recipe?
Joanne Lee Moli...: Yeah. So I remember when I was in high school, a lot of the kids would bring their own lunch with them and because I went to a crazy high school we're all over achievers and taking 10 classes a day, very few of us actually went to eat lunch in the cafeteria. Most of us actually ate lunch during class. And I remember during Latin class in particular, in a bunch of us would eat our lunch there. And one of the girls brought this amazing looking sandwich with a bunch of sprouts on the top, you know those little like alfalfa sprouts, very skinny and it looked so delicious. So the next day I was like, "Oh, I'm going to do the same thing. And I'm bringing a sandwich and I'm going to put these sprouts that I've never had in my life on top of the sandwich." I bring it with me to Latin class and I take a bite out of it.
Joanne Lee Moli...: I'm like, "All right. I really don't like bean sprouts. They don't taste like what I expected at all." So I remember removing all the sprouts and then eating the sandwich. And to this day, if anything has sprouts like that in it, I ask for it to be removed. So the sprouts that I grew up eating mung bean sprouts, they're not thin, they're not like thread thin and they've got the bean at the very end of it, the mung bean. And then they're pretty thick. They're thick sprouts and they're filled with fiber and fluid. I really can't describe it in any other way, but they're thicker than the sprouts that I think we grow up here in the United States with. And they're chewy, they've got texture to them. And this recipe that I came up with was directly a result of watching a Korean drama, one of my favorite Itaewon Class. And in Itaewon Class there are a bunch of kids who are trying to make a successful restaurant and there's this one dish that comes out of the kitchen and it's a bunch of mung bean sprouts with noodles in it and it just looks delicious and my mouth was watering and I was like, "All right, I got to recreate this dish in my kitchen." And I basically just put all of my favorite ingredients into the pan, along with some sweet potato vermicelli. And it turned out amazing. Like I would eat this every night.
Suzy Chase: It's really, really good.
Joanne Lee Moli...: Oh, I'm so glad you liked it, Suzy.
Suzy Chase: So I also made, okay. Tell me if I'm saying this wrong Kimchi Bokkeum Bap.
Joanne Lee Moli...: Yeah, that's pretty good.
Suzy Chase: And it's on page 255. So there's something I love about a recipe where you can use things you have in the fridge or pantry. And I think this recipe is a great example of that.
Joanne Lee Moli...: Well, growing up, my grandma was... Both my grandmothers, they're both survivors of war. And so the idea of wasting food is literally worth like being hit on your arm. My grandmother would literally be like, "No, you have to eat every last kernel. You have to drink every last drop of milk." It was very, very important not to waste a shred of food. And that is again, very endemic of Korea. They don't like to waste food. So you have many dishes which are about extending the edibility of food, like kimchi and all the different pickling of vegetables. But also many recipes that are simply about well taking all the little leftovers and creating something incredibly delicious and nutritious and hearty from that.
Joanne Lee Moli...: And Kimchi Bokkeum Bap is exactly that. It's like, there's no real recipe for it. Like the recipe is just take all the delicious things that are left over in your fridge and throw it into a pan. And you utilize a certain methodology to get as crispy a rice as you can for your fried rice. But honestly it's about all those flavors and getting to enjoy the last bits of all the hard work you put into making all that food.
Suzy Chase: An old Korean proverb says what looks good, tastes good. In short ancient Koreans carefully considered both the taste and visual appeal when preparing food. Korean cuisine is really beautiful. Many of the dishes are really colorful and the photos in this cookbook are gorgeous.
Joanne Lee Moli...: Well thank you so much, Suzy. I worked really hard on the photos and I was really insecure about it. It was that voice again. I was like, "Oh, my photos are going to suck. Everyone's going to think I have a terrible photographer." Because obviously that's not my trade. I'm not a professional photographer. So it always makes me very happy to hear that people think the book looks beautiful. But I think you've touched on something that again, really kind of dates back to gungjeon, which means palace in Korean cuisine. If you go to some of the temple restaurants, the restaurants that serve temple cuisine in South Korea, and these are Michelin rated restaurants. They're literally some of the most beautiful dishes you will have ever seen. They're so meticulously crafted to be pleasing to your spirit. And then of course they taste amazing. And this is all by the way, plant-based because Buddhist cuisine or temple cuisine in Korea is largely plant-based. And this dates back to the dynasties. The empires that ruled Korea before it became a democracy. And it was because many of the nuns that ultimately ended up serving food to Buddhist communities came from the courts of the palace. They were working in the kitchens for the Kings and Queens of Korea, and they brought their trade into the temples. And so the food that you see now in temple cuisine, that's so beautifully crafted is because it was learned by some of the greatest culinary specialists in Korea.
Suzy Chase: Now to my segment called Dream Dinner Party, where I ask you, who would you most want to invite your dream dinner party and why? And it can only be one person.
Joanne Lee Moli...: If I could invite anyone to my dream dinner party right now, I would have to say that it would be Min Jin Lee. She's the author of one of my favorite books of all time Pachinko. I read that a few years ago and it definitely informed my storytelling and the work that I do. And I just think that she's incredibly talented. I would love for her to try my food. And I would love to hear all the amazing stories that I'm sure she has to tell.
Suzy Chase: What was your biggest takeaway from her and her book?
Joanne Lee Moli...: I think the biggest takeaway was that there's nothing black and white about any individual's history or any cultural history. I tend to veer towards viewing things in black and white, and maybe that's the lawyer in me because I sometimes need to view things that way. I'm an advocate. So I have to be pro one side and against another. And I think what I learned from her writing is that the beauty in the human struggle is that it isn't that clear. There's no bad guy and good guy that's so easily demarcated. Sometimes there's a lot of gray and in that gray is an opportunity for growth and understanding and ultimately triumph.
Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web and social media? And are you on YouTube?
Joanne Lee Moli...: Yes, I am. I am on YouTube and you can find me at The Korean Vegan on every single social media platform, including YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter. And my website is also called TheKoreanVegan.com so you can find me anywhere.
Suzy Chase: To purchase The Korean Vegan and support the podcast head on over to CookerybytheBook.com. And thanks Joanne for coming on Cookery By The Book podcast.
Joanne Lee Moli...: Thank you, Suzy. I had a blast talking to you.
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