Tastes Like War: A Memoir

by Grace M. Cho

Feeding others was a way of making a living and learning to live among people who saw her as always and only a foreigner. It was at once a gesture of nurturance and an act of resistance. And in the repetition of these acts, she created her own worth.

I had initially chosen academia as the method of investigating the personal because it felt like a safe and familiar place in which to take risks; cooking, on the other hand, had always been forbidden terrain to me, a distraction from what my mother envisioned as my true calling of becoming a scholar. Ultimately, cooking became an equally important part of my education about the past.

For my mother, kimchi represented survival, and she believed that it would get me through whatever challenges life might throw my way.

Survival is an act of resistance, but performing an act of resistance within an imperialistic order is not the same thing as “being a prostitute by choice.” Forced or free is a false dichotomy.

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live. The gifts of the world are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … ….. Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling down selves as we put ourselves back together once again at the table. This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun. Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory. We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here. At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks. Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite. —JOY HARJO, “Perhaps the World Ends Here”

If I only give you one serving, I am not giving you enough love.