Slow NoodlesChantha NguonLabel: Algonquin BooksDescription: A haunting and beautiful memoir from a Cambodian refugee who lost her country and her family during Pol Pot's genocide in the 1970s but who finds hope by reclaiming the recipes she tasted in her mother's kitchen. With over 20 Khmer recipes included Slow Noodles will resonate with readers who loved the food and emotional truth of Michelle Zauner's Crying in H Mart and it has the staying power of Loung Ung's First They Killed My Father.RECIPE: HOW TO CHANGE CLOTH INTO DIAMONDTake a well-fed nine-year-old with a big family and a fancy education. Fold in 2 revolutions 2 civil wars and 1 wholesale extermination. Subtract a reliable source of food life savings and family members until all are gone. Shave down childhood dreams for approximately two decades until only subsistence remains.In Slow Noodles Chantha Nguon recounts her life as a Cambodian refugee who loses everything and everyone-her home her family her country-all but the remembered tastes and aromas of her mother's kitchen. She summons the quiet rhythms of 1960s Battambang her provincial hometown before the dictator Pol Pot tore her country apart and killed more than a million Cambodians many of them ethnic Vietnamese like Nguon and her family. Then as an immigrant in Saigon Nguon loses her mother brothers and sister and eventually flees to a refugee camp in Thailand. For two decades in exile she survives by cooking in a brothel serving drinks in a nightclub making and selling street food becoming a suture nurse and weaving silk. Nguon's irrepressible spirit and determination come through in this lyrical memoir that includes more than twenty family recipes such as sour chicken-lime soup green papaya pickles and pâté de foie as well as Khmer curries stir-fries and handmade bánh canh noodles. Through it all re-creating the dishes from her childhood becomes an act of resistance of reclaiming her place in the world of upholding the values the Khmer Rouge sought to destroy and of honoring the memory of her beloved mother whose slow noodles approach to healing and cooking prioritized time and care over expediency.Slow Noodles is an inspiring testament to the power of food to keep alive a refugee's connection to her past and spark hope for a beautiful life.
