Vegans of Color
Lisa Le of ‘The Viet Vegan’ Sees Food as a Love Language
Learn her process for veganizing recipes, her Vietnamese home cooking staples, and find out how to make perfect Vietnamese spring rolls
The theory of love languages, coined by Gary Chapman in The Five Love Languages, offers a framework for qualifying one’s preferred ways of giving and receiving affection. These include acts of service, quality time, physical touch, verbal affirmations, and gifting. But some argue that a sixth should be recognized: food.
“My mom sometimes has issues with expressing affirmations verbally — like of course she’ll tell me that she loves me—but she expresses love more through other ways, like waking up early and making my favorite dish for breakfast when I was growing up,” says Lisa Le, creator of the blog and YouTube channel The Viet Vegan. “I think I inherited that idea of ah, yes, I love this person, I will make them all the food!” Her content often references or includes members of her family, cooking and sharing recipes in an instructional and conversational way.
When Le followed her passion and left her day job in marketing a few years ago, she dove into learning more about food science to enhance her recipes. “When you…
