Brainstorm 352: Food Brings People Together

This week’s Brainstorm features several stories in which food brings people from a variety of different cultural backgrounds together. They celebrate the ways in which food can strengthen community and cross language/culture barriers. My full summary and review of each book including any content notes/trigger warnings is down below for those who don’t have access to GoodReads.

FULL SUMMARY/REVIEWS

Dumplings for Lili by Melissa Iwai

Lili and Nai Nai are making bao when Nai Nai realizes they are out of cabbage to line the steamer. She sends Lili up to ask Babcia for some cabbage which sets Lili off on all sorts of errands for the grandmothers in the building borrowing ingredients from each other for their cultural version of dumplings, from pierogis to Jamaican beef patties to tamales and fatayer and ravioli.

The best part of this story is that it is entirely believable. I can just see a little girl staying with her grandma, the elevator being out of order, and she is sent on a chain of missions up and down and up and down the stairs to get ingredients to all the busy, cooking grandmothers. I really appreciate that though Lili is obviously tired as this goes on, she doesn’t complain and she is always kind and respectful to the grandmas. This story was a clever way to compare different dumpling foods from around the world.

Hot Pot Night by Vincent Chen

A group of neighbors comes together to make hot pot for dinner. Told in simple, rhyming text.

This is a fairly simple book, but it celebrates neighbors sharing food and community. The rhyme is well done. The font is nice and large so easier for developing eyes to read. And most of the text would be easy for beginning readers to sound out since it primarily involves hot and pot. There's a little paragraph about what hot pot is and where it came from in the back as well as a recipe. Do not read this on an empty stomach, or at least make sure you have some ingredients for hot pot if you do. :) This would be great to read as a compare/contrast with a Stone Soup folk tale. It very much reads like a modern community version of that, minus any mention of a stone. (Note: I wrote that about Stone Soup off the top of my head and then I went to catalog the book and the cataloging summary for the book calls it a version of the Stone Soup tale too so I guess I was on to something there.)

Luli and the Language of Tea by Andrea Wang, ill. by Hyewon Yum

At the daycare provided for parents learning English, a group of multicultural children who don’t share a common language are all playing by themselves. Luli was sad the first day and came prepared for the second day. She brought tea. And as she says the Mandarin word for tea and offers it to the other children, their similar words for the beverage and common tea-drinking cultural practices bring all the children together and breaks down barriers.

The author explains in the back of the book that the word for tea is very similar across languages because the word was taken along with the product to different countries centuries ago. Different cultures may prepare it differently, but the practice is common in a number of countries all over the world. The words for tea in each country's most common language is used in the story (and phonetically spelled out too). The back of the book talks about the countries represented and how people there like to typically drink their tea. The countries represented in the book are China, Morocco, Chile, Iran, India, Turkey, Kenya, Kazakhstan, Brazil, and Germany. This is a sweet tale about finding common ground for friendship despite language barriers.

My Fine Fellow by Jennieke Cohen

Under Queen Charlotte's reign, in England in the 1830s certain occupations have been opened up for women. One of them is becoming a Culinarian, a chef at the pinnacle of the food scene. Helena Higgins and Penelope Pickering are in their final years at Culinarian school. Penelope is doing her final project on food from the Americas since she just returned from traveling there with her parents. Helena is yet to land on a project that is challenging enough for her tastes. But then the two young women taste street peddler Elijah Little's empanadas and are intrigued by the flavors. Helena proclaims she could train him up to be fine enough to own his own shop some day, and doesn't think much more of it. But when he shows up at her house the next day for this training, she realizes this could be the most stunning final year project. And getting him skilled enough for his own shop is too little for Helena, she wants to pass him off as a Culinarian himself before royalty. Penelope is a little worried. She considers Helena a dear friend, especially since her half-British/half-Filipina heritage doesn't seem to phase her, but she knows Helena takes some getting used to and doesn't have the best people skills. Will Elijah survive her tutelage? As for Elijah, he knows this is his best chance for a step up in life but he's worried what would happen if Helena or Penelope learn that he's Jewish.

In case you didn't figure it out, this is a My Fair Lady rewrite focused on cooking skills more than diction (though Elijah also gets some lessons in passing as a gentleman). Cohen had a lot of fun reimagining various aspects of the musical's plot line in this new scenario. I really, really enjoyed it. I felt like it honored the musical but also created something delightfully new as well. The time period is an imaginary one. Princess Charlotte was a real person in line for the British throne, but she didn't live long enough to become queen. So this imagines what might have happened if she did live to be Queen instead of Victoria. (There's an author's note about this.) It gives the author freedom to reimagine some bits of women's rights in England. But there are some aspects that are kept true to the Victorian age, like the racism and prejudice of many people at that time. Both Penelope's mixed racial heritage and Elijah's Jewish roots allow the story to explore topics of racial prejudice, and it does so tactfully and honorably, in a way that addresses what needs to be talked about but also doesn't bog down the flow of the story or feel jolting to the tone. It definitely deserves that Sydney Taylor honor. Overall, this is a very fun read for My Fair Lady fans, foodies, cute romance fans, multicultural cast fans, and reimagined history fans.

Notes on content: No language issues that I remember. No sexual content beyond a kiss. No violence. There's some racist and unthoughtful comments, but as mentioned, they are addressed well.