Tastes Like War: A Memoir

"Grace M. Cho grew up in a small, rural American town as the daughter of a white American merchant marine and the Korean bar hostess he met abroad. When Grace was fifteen, her Korean mother experienced the onset of schizophrenia, a condition that would continue 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 to understand herself and the cultural roots of her mother's condition"--
A powerful account of a Korean American daughter's exploration of food and family history to understand her mother's schizophrenia.
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.Grace M. Cho is the author of Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War, which received a 2010 book award from the American Sociological Association. She teaches at the College of Staten Island, CUNY.