Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You: A Memoir of Food, Family and Finding Love
By: Candice Chung
A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST SUMMER BOOK
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A deliciously nourishing memoir of food, family and finding love…
‘A world-spanning love story.’ Rebecca May Johnson
‘A wonderfully heartwarming memoir with lots of foodie insights.’ Rachel Khoo
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After a thirteen-year relationship ends, food journalist Candice Chung find herself losing both her first love and her favourite dining partner. So when her retired Cantonese parents volunteer as her new plus-ones, she must decide whether to keep the peace – or finally confront the distance that’s grown between them.
As a new romance stirs and old wounds heal, Candice begins to learn that some truths can’t be spoken – only tasted . . .
This is a deliciously nourishing story of food, family and finding new love.
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‘A touching, poignant love story… so vivid and flavoursome.’ Huma Qureshi, author of How We Met
‘Packed with heart, humour, and those tender moments around a dinner table.’ Angela Hui, author of Takeaway
‘Will undo anyone whose love language is food.’ Tara Wigley, co-author of Ottolenghi SIMPLE
‘A real and delightful surprise – and also very funny.’ Ella Risbridger, author of Midnight Chicken (& Other Recipes Worth Living For)
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‘Chung’s prose is as deliciously playful as her palate’
- Leah Hazard, author of Womb -
‘Chung’s poetic prose blazes on the pages’
- Jessie Tu, author of The Honeyeater -
‘A wonderfully heart warming memoir with lots of foodie insights.’
- Rachel Khoo -
‘A world-spanning love story, a book of philosophy via the dinner table, a tender portrait of family trying to communicate … a vital new literary voice’
- Rebecca May Johnson, author of Small Fires -
‘Hilarious, heartfelt and incredibly perceptive … Candice Chung’s memoir stayed with me like the warmest of memories’
- Lee Tran Lam, Should You Really Eat That? podcast -
‘A touching, poignant love story … at times heartbreaking, complicated and bittersweet, but also, uplifting and full of tenderness’
- Huma Qureshi, author of Things We Do Not Tell the People We Love -
‘A comforting hotpot of a book. Every page offers a new surprising morsel about connection and choice; always nourishing, always delightful, always tender’
- Benjamin Law, author of The Family Law -
‘A delicious and moving treatise about love and longing, and all the ways families express or hide these life-sustaining things’
- Alice Pung OAM, author of Unpolished Gem and One Hundred Days -
‘Shows us how love and releationships can be influenced by food culture, and how our dinner tables have shaped the way we understand the world, as well as ourselves.’
- Xiaolu Guo -
‘Beautifully written, lean and nourishing, Candice Chung’s Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You is an astute, moving and often amusing memoir that does a profoundly affecting dive into how rituals around family dining are used as a vehicle for expressing what we really want to say, and how we really feel’
- LoveReading -
‘A thoughtful and compelling pastiche of fragments, lists, and literary reflections, Chung’s memoir revolves around her personal history with food, family and culture, but also around writing: Deborah Levy, Nora Ephron, Helen Garner and Craig Claiborne are all name-checked, and their influence is felt throughout.’
- Steph Harmon, Guardian Australia -
‘A delightful portrait of love expressed through the delicious business of eating out together. I adored this book’s wit and wisdom, and Chung’s capacity to delve into the complexities of the relationship between the first and second generation with such tenderness and lightness of touch. A funny, generous, and joyously relatable memoir.’
- Chitra Ramaswamy, author of Homelands -
‘Packed with heart, humour, and those tender moments around a dinner table, Candice manages to capture the everyday comforts and the sometimes unsaid things that bring us together over meals. A must-read.’
- Angela Hui, author of TAKEAWAY: Stories From a Childhood Behind the Counter -
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