Book Review: A Spoonful of Promises by T. Susan Chang

Title: A Spoonful of Promises: Stories and Recipes from a Well-Tempered Table
Author: T. Susan Chang
Enjoyment Rating: 8/10
Referral: I got this book for my birthday from my godmother, Annie
Source: Hardback
Books I've read this year: 8

For several years, I went through a foodie phase where I read lots and lots of memoirs about food. Then I started grad school and my kids were lucky to get one home-cooked meal each week that wasn't pasta, grilled cheese, quesadillas or chicken nuggets, and I felt like a poseur reading all of the foodie books. But (thesis notwithstanding) the grad-school phase is done, and maybe this book represents a return to the foodie memoir, a genre I really love.

I've heard of Susan Chang before. I remember reading one of her articles a few months ago about the crazy kinds of ice cream she makes with her family and it felt kind of braggy-- her kids clamor for basil ice cream, really? I'm lucky if mine venture beyond Creamies. So I was expecting bragginess from the memoir as well. And yeah, it does venture in that direction at times, but overall, I really liked the format. She'd tell a story about a food and provide a recipe. The recipes/stories were roughly grouped together into categories (easy dinners or crazy meals, for example) and over the course of all of the stories, cohesive themes began to emerge-- her love for her dad, her relationship with her husband and kids, the sense of loss she feels from her mom's death when she was a teenager. It's a format that I could see working well for my mom, for instance, if she chose to write the story of her life. I'm not sure that it has inspired me to go out and make beef heart chili (or at least not to serve it to my kids), but I may try the Pad Thai.

And since my radar is attuned to all things Chinese American these days, I was also interested in the ways that Chang incorporates her Chinese American background into the story. I know that our daughter will undoubtedly grow up more American than Chinese, and I was grateful that Chang let us glimpse into her childhood as a third-generation Chinese American, a girl whose mom stuffed her lunch not with dumplings and rice, but with wheat germ and granola bars.