Hi! Welcome to The Subversive Table!
My name is Lis Lam and I am a Korean American currently living in Canada. I started The Subversive Table as a place to record my recipes. They reflect my experience as an Asian living in the Diaspora. I love to cook Korean food. And everything else!
I hope you’ll enjoy my recipes — treasured family recipes that reflect my cultural heritage AND modern classics influenced by the different places and people who’ve come into my life. They also include the kitchen tools of today such as an air fryer and instant pot.
As a member of the Asian Diaspora — an Asian who does not live in their country of origin — my food is influenced by multiple sources. Not 100% traditional Korean and not 100% traditional American or Canadian. It’s a mashup that reflects a little of everything.
I like to refer to my dishes as Food from the Asian Diaspora. Or Third Culture Food. At any rate, I hope you’ll find these recipes delicious and exciting. They represent the global reality of our world today.
What you’ll find at The Subversive Table:
I love Korean food.
Korean food is how I connect to my culture. I cook Korean food when I need comfort. I also cook Korean food to remember who I am and where I come from.
My goal is to create simple Korean recipes that anyone can cook at home. Yes, you can cook Korean food!
I also love to cook (and eat) everything else!
My point of view as an Asian American living in Canada shows up in my food: intense flavor and spice, Asian twists on classics, not-too-sweet desserts, snacky meals, and lots of spice.
Let’s stay connected!
Follow me on social media. I love to hang out on Instagram. That’s the place where I post informal how-tos, my latest food obsession, grocery store finds, weekly dinner menus, and behind-the-scenes from the blog. You can also follow me on Pinterest and Facebook and TikTok.
More About My Story:
I am a Third-Culture Kid. Sociologist Ruth Unseem coined the term to refer to individuals who spent their formative years outside of their parents’ homeland. Growing up, I didn’t fit into my parents’ culture (Korean) or the culture I lived in (white Suburbia). I floated in a third space, somewhere in between.
At home, I ate traditional Korean food. At school, I ate classic American lunchroom fare.
When I moved out, I learned to cook Western food by watching Food Network and scouring recipe index sites. I subscribed to gourmet magazines and bought cookbooks. There were so many options to help me become a better Western cook.
But for Korean food, there was only ONE option: Halmoni.
Halmoni is my Korean grandmother. She raised me while my parents worked long hours at the family business. She was an excellent home cook who grew up in China during the Japanese occupation of Korea. As a child, I spent many hours in her kitchen. As an adult, she became my go-to source for Korean food advice.
That’s how this blog came to be. I’ve always loved food and I’ve always loved to cook, especially for the people in my life. Enjoy!
Featured In:
- Buzzfeed
- Insider
- CJ Newsroom
- PureWow
- She Knows
- Mashed
- The Tasting Table
- The Storied Recipe
- Tiny Beans
I live in Toronto, the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and current home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.
