This Taiwanese vegan chef bridges tradition and taste

And this pot of stew has been cooking nonstop for 45-plus years [View in your browser.]( [Gastro Obscura]( [Vegetarian Meat in Taiwan Isn’t Trying to ‘Replace’ Anything]( [In Taiwan, vegetarian meat is primarily made with gluten, soy, or lion’s mane mushrooms. But why use meat substitutes at all if your goal is a plant-based diet? It’s a question vegan chef George Lee asked himself when creating his first cookbook, A-Gong’s Table: Vegan Recipes from a Taiwanese Home. It’s not always about the taste, but the meaning and texture the vegan meat symbolizes in a dish. When cooking fish with tofu skin, for example, Lee learned that the dish stems from Taiwanese prayer culture in which one would offer traditional animal sacrifices of pork, chicken, and fish. “Even vegetarian people would have to find substitutes for that,” he says.]( [Try a recipe for yourself]( [A Family's Mission to Revive an Abandoned Trout Farm]( [Ty Walker and his wife Shannon were young and living the city life in Los Angeles when they started yearning for something quieter and nature-filled. They found it in an abandoned 1930s trout hatchery in the Blue Ridge Mountains of rural Virginia. Today, their trout is served in Michelin-starred restaurants along the East Coast. Yet their success didn’t come easy. Due to its age, the hatchery featured no electric pumps, water filters, oxygen monitors, or other tools found in modern hatcheries, and the Walkers kept it that way. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s the only way you can consistently raise fish that taste like you pulled ’em right out of a mountain stream,” says Ty.]( [Read how the Walkers did it]( [A Half-Century Old Soup]( [Leftovers are always better the next day. Or, in the case of Bangkok bistro Wattana Panich, the next generation. Here, a giant pot of beef stew known as neua tune has been simmering nonstop for more than 45 years when the current owner was still a child. Using an ancient practice called Perpetual Stew, some of the previous day’s leftover broth is used as the base for the following day’s soup. There is no known recipe, just a memory of how it should taste.]( [Where to find it]( [The Explosive Discovery Made by Britain’s Pilots]( [A crispy vanilla wafer and gooey marshmallow coated in a thin layer of chocolate—chocolate teacakes were “all the rage” in mid-century England, particularly among the Royal Air Force. The sweet snack had become popular for a rather unusual characteristic. The pilots found that when they gained altitude, the teacakes would expand, resulting in a few extra bites for the pilots. Sadly, the teacake’s fame was short-lived when a few expanded too quickly, leading to a rather sticky situation: they exploded.]( [Continue reading]( [Atlas Obscura Courses]( [A Culinary Journey from West & Central Africa to the American South]( [Join James Beard Award-winning culinary historian Michael W. Twitty on a cultural journey from West and Central Africa to the American South. Each session will trace the histories of regional cuisines, ingredients, and dishes—drawing from Michael’s research and gastronomic experiences in these regions— and end with recipes for you to try.]( [Enroll now »]( [Add a place to Atlas Obscura]( [Forward this email to a friend]( [d0b0110c-adef-46fe-a37c-c6a4a5bd18fe.png]( [5d9568f4-2a02-4efe-bdea-03a3f27b1060.png]( [03d8ab17-efe7-4adf-ad26-f53203d8a858.png]( [b37902f5-67f5-4692-b86e-4d9acfa9ffe1.png]( [923671d1-2471-4bd0-bf83-4f600122ecc5.png]( [0bbd485c-ec53-4799-8847-87e8fbfbb39c.png]( [See all of our Newsletters]( [View in Browser]( • [Forward to a Friend]( [atlasobscura.com]( • info@atlasobscura.com 61 Greenpoint Ave #210, Brooklyn, NY 11222 [Unsubscribe {EMAIL}](