Laura G. Lee is a second generation Korean American children’s book author and illustrator based in Northern California, raised in the beautiful mountains of West Virginia. With a Masters in Architectural Design from Columbia University and interactive media and design from New York University, she has worn many hats as an artist, filmmaker, design researcher, and product designer for emerging technologies.
As a children's book writer and illustrator, Laura's stories often center around questions of identity, culture, and finding a personal connection to the world and to each other.
Her picture book, ‘’Cat Eyes’’ (2018), marked her first published work. On January 7, Laura released her latest book, ‘’Soy Sauce!,’’ a picture book that celebrates the beloved kitchen staple and the way food connects family and friends. What makes it truly unique is that the illustrations were created using real soy sauce as paint.
In the book, Luan creates a classic Chinese soy sauce, Haru follows his family’s traditional recipe at their Japanese brewery, and Yoo-mi makes a Korean soy sauce with special ingredients that add a spicy and sweet touch.
‘’Soy Sauce!’’ has been received a Kirkus Star Review, which highlights books of “exceptional merit.” The Kirkus Star is one of the most esteemed honors in the book industry.
Laura is currently working on a children’s book about artificial intelligence and what makes us human.
Below are excerpts from an email interview with her between Feb 4 to Mar 3.
1. What inspired you to write ‘’Soy Sauce!"?
My early inspiration for “SOY SAUCE!” came while I was developing a children's book centered around Korean cuisine. While researching my story, I came across Korean soy sauce making, and the work of Master soy sauce maker Ki Soon-do in Jeollanam-do. I was amazed at the craft behind Korean soy sauce making, the tactile approach to creating it. As I dug deeper into the history of soy sauce, I knew it needed a story all on its own.
2. How did you decide on the specific themes and messages in the book?
The history of soy sauce is complex and involves many overlapping cultural histories. If you look at any commodity today, there is often a role it played in stories of colonialism, cultural appropriation, or even war. The story of soy sauce is no different; it was celebrated at the banquets King Louis the XIV of France, and used as a secret ingredient in English L&P Worcestershire sauce.
Writing “SOY SAUCE!” was a catalyst for me to explore complex themes as it related to my own identity growing up Korean American in the 1980s. It was important for me to share with the world how diverse soy sauce really is, while pointing out how it connects us all.
3. What made you decide to use real soy sauce as paint for the illustrations?
This was so much fun. As I explored the different dimensions of soy sauce, I discovered a “flavor and aroma” wheel that showed the different tastes that you can experience in soy sauce. It was vibrant and colorful, like a color wheel. At that point, the idea struck me to try using soy sauce as paint, and I began to experiment. I tried out many kinds of soy sauces to see how they mixed with paint on paper.
4. Did you face any challenges while using soy sauce as a medium?
Soy sauce is highly acidic, so it is not the best for creating paintings you can archive. It felt counterproductive to paint with a medium that will not last, that will eventually disintegrate the paper, but that was part of the beauty of trying as well. Soy sauce is very sticky, and dries very slowly. I had to experiment with the right balance of soy sauce to paint, to be able to dry and store my paintings. Using too much soy sauce, the paintings still have not dried over two years later.
5. What aspects of Korean heritage were most important for you to highlight in this story?
Korean soy sauce is unique but is also part of a global story. Each country has its own special way of making soy sauce, based on local resources, culture, and ingredients. In the Korean way of brewing, I hoped to highlight the use of local ingredients like jujube and chili, and the traditional process of shaping soybeans into meju as part of the fermentation process. In Korea, instead of using koji, or another fermentation “starter,” Koreans shape the soybeans into bricks or spheres that hang to dry and ferment naturally in the sun. This was one of my original visions of soy sauce making, and it’s incredibly beautiful.
My hope is to open the door for children to explore these histories, and their own cultural histories, more deeply.
6. How does Korean soy sauce differ from Japanese and Chinese soy sauce?
Traditionally brewed Korean soy sauce does not use wheat as an ingredient (like Japan), and as described above, shaping meju is a unique part of the brewing process. In Korea, charcoal is added to purify the mixture as it ferments over time.
7. What role did soy sauce play in your own Korean family meals growing up?
My parents immigrated to the U.S. from Korea in the 1960s, and I grew up in Charleston, West Virginia, where there was very little connection to Korean culture and food. They would have to drive 2-3 states over to get Korean ingredients. But the one thing that American grocery stores carried in the 1980s, was soy sauce. With soy sauce, my mom was able to re-create Korean dishes, using some local ingredients. It was a way that my parents could still feel a connection to home cooking, despite being so far away from it.
My mom also used soy sauce in Western dishes to give it an extra flavor, like spaghetti sauce and barbeque dishes. In a way, soy sauce was the glue between the two culinary palettes.
8. What do you hope to achieve with ‘’Soy Sauce!’’?
I hope to spark curiosity about a beloved kitchen staple that everyone eats, but so few people know much about, and to show how good food connects us all.
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