The most amazing thing about this book is that it is about growing up Japanese in the United States and my mother does not already own it! What a find! Linda Furiya is second generation Japanese-American born and raised in Indiana. As the only daughter in the only Asian family in town, many of Furiya's experiences and heartaches are predictable - the kids at school make fun of her slanted eyes, the people in town mock her parents' accents. But, she finds a different lens through which to view her experiences. In becoming conscious of her own identity, and reconciling her desire to belong with her love for those things that make her different, Furiya tells her story through her family's obsession with food. At the end of each chapter, she includes a recipe for a Japanese comfort dish - and she demonstrates how for Japanese families eating is a way of coming together, enjoying life, and showing your love for one another. In this way, Furiya's book for me was a wonderful remembrance of growing up in my own family - where I often spent the day looking forward to the meals I knew my mother would make for dinner, the special days when we made bento lunches, New Year's mochi, and all the summers with my grandparents savoring teriyaki and manju and hiding from the tsukemono. Furiya's parents had an arranged marriage - her father was a POW during WWII, and both her mother and father lost parents while still very young. In this way, as well as in living so isolated from the rest of her extended family, Furiya's life is nothing like my own. But, her desire to learn more about her culture - including an amazing trip to Japan with her mother - was very comforting to me. Furiya is a good writer - though at times her story is not as linear as I would have liked - though this is necessarily because so much of her memoir is a demonstration of how she reacted as a child (often embarrassed of her parents) in contrast to what she has come to appreciate of her heritage. Mostly this book made me miss my grandparents (but very grateful for all the time I spent cooking with them) and crave sushi with wasabi hot enough to clear out my sinuses.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Bento Box in the Heartland - Linda Furiya
The most amazing thing about this book is that it is about growing up Japanese in the United States and my mother does not already own it! What a find! Linda Furiya is second generation Japanese-American born and raised in Indiana. As the only daughter in the only Asian family in town, many of Furiya's experiences and heartaches are predictable - the kids at school make fun of her slanted eyes, the people in town mock her parents' accents. But, she finds a different lens through which to view her experiences. In becoming conscious of her own identity, and reconciling her desire to belong with her love for those things that make her different, Furiya tells her story through her family's obsession with food. At the end of each chapter, she includes a recipe for a Japanese comfort dish - and she demonstrates how for Japanese families eating is a way of coming together, enjoying life, and showing your love for one another. In this way, Furiya's book for me was a wonderful remembrance of growing up in my own family - where I often spent the day looking forward to the meals I knew my mother would make for dinner, the special days when we made bento lunches, New Year's mochi, and all the summers with my grandparents savoring teriyaki and manju and hiding from the tsukemono. Furiya's parents had an arranged marriage - her father was a POW during WWII, and both her mother and father lost parents while still very young. In this way, as well as in living so isolated from the rest of her extended family, Furiya's life is nothing like my own. But, her desire to learn more about her culture - including an amazing trip to Japan with her mother - was very comforting to me. Furiya is a good writer - though at times her story is not as linear as I would have liked - though this is necessarily because so much of her memoir is a demonstration of how she reacted as a child (often embarrassed of her parents) in contrast to what she has come to appreciate of her heritage. Mostly this book made me miss my grandparents (but very grateful for all the time I spent cooking with them) and crave sushi with wasabi hot enough to clear out my sinuses.
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