“…animal products are deeply ingrained in the food traditions of most cultures.
How do you remove yourself from these traditions without a fundamental sense of loss?”
I even started a recipe blog, posting photos on Instagram of the meals I made.
Simply Recipes / Hannah Che
Over the winter break, I was determined to convert my family to a plant-based diet.
I talked about the horrors of factory farming and the environmental footprint of meat and dairy.
Im cooking duck for dinner, he announced.
Hannah Che
For Lunar New Year, our family gathered to make pork dumplings, as we did every holiday.
Rongrong, you arent participating?
I wondered if my commitment to eat more sustainably meant I was turning away from my culture.
How do you remove yourself from these traditions without a fundamental sense of loss?
This cuisine was beautiful, alluringly delicious, and rich in historyI wanted to learn more.
I trained as a chef at the only professional vegetarian cooking program in the country.
Almost everyone at the school was a practicing Buddhist, and they treated me as an anomaly.
You arent vegetarian because of religious observation?
These were Chinese people to whom I didnt have to explain my eating choices or defend my cultural identity.
He had a favorite analogy.
Cooking vegetarian food isnt just about removing all the meat, he said.
You cant cut off the wings of an airplane and call it a submarine.
It required an entirely different approach to thinking about flavor.
I learned to respond to the food as it talked back to me, and to trust my instincts.
As a vegetarian chef, you do not just practice cooking, but make cooking a practice.
And unsurprisingly, my knowledge of Chinese culture has deepened.
Reprinted with permission from"The Vegan Chinese Kitchen"by Hannah Che copyright 2022.
Photographs by Hannah Che.
Published by Clarkson Potter, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.
