Eating Bitterness

When the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949, Mao Zedong declared that "not even one person shall die of hunger." Yet some 30 million peasants died of starvation and exhaustion during the Great Leap Forward. Eating Bitterness reveals how men and women in rural and urban settings, from the provincial level to the grassroots, experienced the changes brought on by the party leaders' attempts to modernize China. This landmark volume lifts the curtain of party propaganda to expose the suffering of citizens and the deeply contested nature of state-society relations in Maoist China.

Every year over 200 million peasants flock to China’s urban centers, providing a profusion of cheap labor that helps fuel the country’s staggering economic growth. Award-winning journalist Michelle Dammon Loyalka follows the trials and triumphs of eight such migrants—including a vegetable vendor, an itinerant knife sharpener, a free-spirited recycler, and a cash-strapped mother—offering an inside look at the pain, self-sacrifice, and uncertainty underlying China’s dramatic national transformation. At the heart of the book lies each person’s ability to “eat bitterness”—a term that roughly means to endure hardships, overcome difficulties, and forge ahead. These stories illustrate why China continues to advance, even as the rest of the world remains embroiled in financial turmoil. At the same time, Eating Bitterness demonstrates how dealing with the issues facing this class of people constitutes China’s most pressing domestic challenge.

The champion of uncelebrated foods including fat, offal, and bones, Jennifer McLagan turns her attention to a fascinating, underappreciated, and trending topic: bitterness. What do coffee, IPA beer, dark chocolate, and radicchio all have in common? They’re bitter. While some culinary cultures, such as in Italy and parts of Asia, have an inherent appreciation for bitter flavors (think Campari and Chinese bitter melon), little attention has been given to bitterness in North America: we’re much more likely to reach for salty or sweet. However, with a surge in the popularity of craft beers; dark chocolate; coffee; greens like arugula, dandelion, radicchio, and frisée; high-quality olive oil; and cocktails made with Campari and absinthe—all foods and drinks with elements of bitterness—bitter is finally getting its due. In this deep and fascinating exploration of bitter through science, culture, history, and 100 deliciously idiosyncratic recipes—like Cardoon Beef Tagine, White Asparagus with Blood Orange Sauce, and Campari Granita—award-winning author Jennifer McLagan makes a case for this misunderstood flavor and explains how adding a touch of bitter to a dish creates an exciting taste dimension that will bring your cooking to life.

Draws on reports from kitchens, markets, farms, and laboratories to trace historical experiences of flavor while making predictions on how the sense of taste will evolve in coming decades.

Peaceful parenting is hard enough for the average parent. Imagine trying to do it when you have the instincts of a tiger mother. In Untigering, Iris Chen shares her journey of leaving behind authoritarian tiger parenting to embrace a respectful, relational way of raising children. As a Chinese American mom, she draws from her experiences of living in both North America and Asia and offers insights and practices to:?Heal from your childhood wounds?Change your beliefs about yourself and your children?Parent through connection instead of control?Redefine your understanding of success?Navigate and challenge cultural norms Iris calls for a radical shift from parenting that is rooted in power to one that is grounded in partnership, but she does so with humor, humility, and empathy. This book is her invitation to you to begin your own journey of transformation as a parent.

WINNER – 2020 SEAA's Francis L. Hsu Book Prize Honorable Mention China’s new globalism plays out as much in the lives of ordinary workers who shoulder the task of implementing infrastructure projects in the world as in the upper echelons of power. Through unprecedented ethnographic research among Chinese road builders in Ethiopia, Miriam Driessen finds that the hope of sharing China’s success with developing countries soon turns into bitterness, as Chinese workers perceive a lack of support and appreciation from Ethiopian laborers and state entities. The bitterness is compounded by their position at the margins of Chinese society, suspended as they are between China and Africa and between a poor rural background and a precarious urban future. Workers’ aspirations and predicaments reflect back on a Chinese society in flux as well as China’s shifting place in the world. Tales of Hope, Tastes of Bitterness: Chinese Road Builders in Ethiopia sheds light on situations of contact in which disparate cultures meet and wrestle with each other in highly asymmetric relations of power. Revealing the intricate and intimate dimensions of these encounters, Driessen conceptualizes how structures of domination and subordination are reshaped on the ground. The book skillfully interrogates micro-level experiences and teases out how China’s involvement in Africa is both similar to and different from historical forms of imperialism. “A trailblazing ethnography that at once humanizes and complicates our understanding of the China-Africa encounter. Taking us deep into the personal, social, and working life worlds of Chinese and Ethiopian construction staff and laborers, Driessen mounts a powerful challenge against the clichéd narrative of China in Africa as a case of neocolonialism masterminded by Beijing.” —Ching Kwan Lee, UCLA, author of The Specter of Global China: Politics, Labor, and Foreign Investment in Africa “China rapidly transformed itself from an international aid recipient into a world-leading aid provider. This seemingly epochal shift, as this book powerfully demonstrates, is much more complex and less predictable than it appears to be. Driessen’s wonderfully perceptive ethnography and insightful analyses pave a new path in understanding ongoing global changes.” —Biao Xiang, University of Oxford, author of Global “Body Shopping”: An Indian Labor System in the Information Technology Industry

Named one of the Best Fall Cookbooks 2020 by The New York Times, Eater, Epicurious, Food & Wine, Forbes, Saveur, Serious Eats, The Smithsonian, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, CNN Travel, The Kitchn, Chowhound, NPR, The Art of Eating Longlist 2021 and many more; plus international media attention including The Financial times, The Globe and Mail, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, The Times (U.K.), Delicious Magazine (U.K.), The Times (Ireland), and Vogue India and winner of The Guild of U.K. Food Writers (General Cookbook). Finalist for the 2021 IACP Cookbook Award. "The Flavor Equation" deserves space on the shelf right next to "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" as a titan of the how-and-why brigade."– The New Yorker "Deep and illuminating, fresh and highly informative... a most brilliant achievement." – Yotam Ottolenghi "[A] beautiful and intelligent book." – J. Kenji López-Alt, author The Food Lab and Chief Consultant for Serious Eats.com Aroma, texture, sound, emotion—these are just a few of the elements that play into our perceptions of flavor. The Flavor Equation demonstrates how to convert approachable spices, herbs, and commonplace pantry items into tasty, simple dishes. In this groundbreaking book, Nik Sharma, scientist, food blogger, and author of the buzz-generating cookbook Season, guides home cooks on an exploration of flavor in more than 100 recipes. • Provides inspiration and knowledge to both home cooks and seasoned chefs • An in-depth exploration into the science of taste • Features Nik Sharma's evocative, trademark photography style The Flavor Equation is an accessible guide to elevating elemental ingredients to make delicious dishes that hit all the right notes, every time. Recipes include Brightness: Lemon-Lime Mintade, Saltiness: Roasted Tomato and Tamarind Soup, Sweetness: Honey Turmeric Chicken Kebabs with Pineapple, Savoriness: Blistered Shishito Peppers with Bonito Flakes, and Richness: Coconut Milk Cake. • A global, scientific approach to cooking from bestselling cookbook author Nik Sharma • Dives deep into the most basic of our pantry items—salts, oils, sugars, vinegars, citrus, peppers, and more • Perfect gift for home cooks who want to learn more beyond recipes, those interested in the science of food and flavor, and readers of Lucky Peach, Serious Eats, Indian-Ish, and Koreatown • Add it to the shelf with cookbooks like The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science by J. Kenji López-Alt; Ottolenghi Flavor: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi; and Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat.

Frances, a Chinese-American student at an academically competitive school in San Francisco, has always had it drilled into her to be obedient to her mother and to be a straight-A student so that she can go to Med school. But is being a doctor what she wants? It has never even occurred to Frances to question her own feelings and desires until she accidentally winds up in speech class and finds herself with a hidden talent. Does she dare to challenge the mother who has sacrificed everything for her? Set in the 1980s.