CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumna Joanne Lee Molinaro, known as “The Korean Vegan,” will return to her alma mater for an appearance in September. Molinaro – a lawyer, TikTok star and best-selling cookbook author – will speak and give a cooking demonstration on Sept. 21 at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts as part of the PYGMALION festival.
It was during her college years at Illinois that Molinaro began taking a greater interest in her Korean heritage and the food she grew up eating. But she didn’t begin cooking Korean food herself until she began eating vegan.
“When I took the step from not just eating the food but preparing the food, it was an affirmative step toward my history, my family’s culture and the stories that underpin who I am. In many ways prior to that, I was indifferent or slightly hostile to my family’s history,” she said.
Molinaro, who grew up in and lives in Chicago, began blogging as “The Korean Vegan” after adopting a plant-based diet in 2016. When she decided she would join her boyfriend – now her husband – in going vegan, she feared she would be jeopardizing her Korean identity. She saw veganism as a stereotypically white way of eating.
But she found that it was not difficult to “veganize” the Korean dishes she loved, and she learned Korea has a long history of highly regarded plant-based cuisine, known as “temple cuisine,” that originated in Buddhist temples.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she posted TikTok videos to cope with the isolation, and a video of her making Korean braised potatoes went viral. She began making videos showing her preparing various dishes while sharing stories about her family and her parents, who immigrated to the U.S. from what is now North Korea.
Molinaro found making food incredibly therapeutic and a gateway for communication, both with her audiences on social media and with her family.
“Food in many Asian cultures is a great proxy for a lot of emotions we may culturally feel uncomfortable communicating,” Molinaro said. “For example, we don’t say ‘I love you.’ Instead, my mom would make me a huge plate of Korean pancakes and shove them under my nose. That’s very typical in an Asian household. It made wordless conversations much easier – who we were, what it means for my family to come to the U.S., what it means to love your children, how to navigate pain, loss and grief. We were able to do that without words through food. In the creation and sharing of food, there was an implicit sharing of love and vulnerability.”
Molinaro said her intent with her social media posts was to challenge any preconceived notions people had about immigrants and to humanize their stories. She said she hopes her stories will prompt people to look at the world a little differently or be motivated to take some positive steps in their own lives.
Molinaro said her experiences at the U. of I. greatly impacted her life. The English and Asian American studies classes she took “radically changed the way I viewed the world, and ultimately changed the way I communicate and operate in the world. Looking at the world through a critical lens is part of who I am now.”
Since gaining a following on TikTok, Molinaro published a best-selling cookbook, “The Korean Vegan Cookbook,” in 2021; created a podcast and newsletter; and launched the Korean Vegan Kollective, an app that provides recipes, nutrition details, grocery lists and access to food coaches.
Molinaro hears from people who are inspired by her to become vegan. She said she sees a much greater interest in vegan eating in the last few years, much of which she attributes to concern about climate change and the urgency to find some way to combat it on an individual basis. She said she is less interested in convincing her TikTok followers to become vegan than she is in challenging them to think critically about their relationships to animals and the planet.
Her favorite dish, pictured on the cover of her cookbook, is jjajangmyeon, a fermented black soybean noodle dish. It’s not a traditional Korean food, but a hybrid of Korean and Chinese cooking that is very popular in Korea.
“It’s an absolute comfort food and one of my father’s favorite dishes,” she said. “Dad would take us out as a treat on Sundays in Chicago, and my brother and I would split a bowl and Dad would get one. For me, it’s imbued with so many stories from my childhood. In my mind, it represents a treat, a celebratory dish.”