Tastes Like War: A Memoir

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTIONThis evocative memoir of food and family history is somehow both mouthwatering and heartbreaking... and a potent personal history (Shelf Awareness).Grace M. Cho grew up as the daughter of a white American merchant marine and the Korean bar hostess he met abroad. They were one of few immigrants in a xenophobic small town during the Cold War, where identity was politicized by everyday details--language, cultural references, memories, and food. When Grace was fifteen, her dynamic mother experienced the onset of schizophrenia, a condition that would continue and evolve for the rest of her life.Part food memoir, part sociological investigation, Tastes Like War is a hybrid text about a daughter s search through intimate and global history for the roots of her mother s schizophrenia. In her mother s final years, Grace learned to cook dishes from her parent s childhood in order to invite the past into the present, and to hold space for her mother s multiple voices at the table. And through careful listening over these shared meals, Grace discovered not only the things that broke the brilliant, complicated woman who raised her--but also the things that kept her alive.An exquisite commemoration and a potent reclamation. --Booklist (starred review)A wrenching, powerful account of the long-term effects of the immigrant experience. --Kirkus Reviews