Bento Box In The Heartland

Interesting memoir

I adored this book and devoured it like delicious sushi! Even though I am not Japanese-American I felt so much of Linda's story rang true to me as I also grew up in the heartland during my early teens through college. It may not have been the "country" as it was a suburb of Cleveland; but there is a small town feeling in the mid-west that is unlike anywhere else in this country. It was difficult enough for me to adjust coming from the East Coast - never mind a family with roots in Japan!I especially identified with the cruelty of her classmates when she was young and then even later during a terrible occasion in high school that let her know no matter what - she was somehow, still on the outside, not accepted by her classmates. She must have felt very alone.There was so much pain that her parents endured, so much suffering and to watch the older, grown-up Linda identify this and come to terms with it with such eloquence and respect was heart-rending.Her characters are achingly real; I cared about them - even minor characters like her Grandmother and Aunt Jane. I cared about everyone who was a part of this experience, part of her experience.Linda never makes herself the hero of her own tale. In fact her harshest words are about herself and the regrets she has. What this book is ultimately is a stripped away volume of the truth of a life, of a time in a life. It is all laid bare and exposed with no saccharin, no filler, clean, beautiful, and natural, very much like the Japanese cuisine that is so much a part of the telling.As a passionate lover of Japanese food, the seamless integration of the role food played in her life and her family life makes this book a unique achievement. It's not a gushy foodie diatribe; but a rich first-person accounting of food as love.

I love food memoirs, and I particularly enjoyed this one. It's a classic coming of age story: the author is a Japanese-American girl living in Indiana and dealing with the cultural identity questions that come from growing up Japanese in "whitebread America." Intertwined with the tale are the author's thoughts on food, and how it relates to the her identity and connects her to her family's homeland.I loved the author's descriptions of food, and the book is filled with recipes from her childhood. I would race through every chapter just so I could get to the end and see another recipe. I've had the opportunity to try two of those recipes: Steamed Buns with Meat Filling (Nikuman) and Roast Pork Loin. The steamed buns were awesome. My partner said he could eat them morning, noon, and night. The roasted pork loin was also good.The author's stories were also interesting, and at times touching. She shares her experiences with racism, going to school in a mostly white public school and trying to "fit in", and the impact of her mother's depression on her life.Overall, if you love reading about food, especially Asian food, you will likely enjoy this book.

Despite the slightly corny title, the book itself is very much written from the heart of the author. She gave me a glimpse into her experiences; what it felt like for her to be an American-born child of immigrants, with a mix of hatred for racism and xenophobia around her and an internalized frustration toward what made her, her family, and others like her different. It's also a great story about growing up in the late sixties and early seventies in America's heartland, about family, and about food. (I don't think I finished a single chapter without getting hungry for Japanese food!)

My twins live in the Heartland and are of Asian heritage. This was a wonderful mentor text to get them thinking about their racial and cultural heritage and how their efforts to blend in are often dissuaded because they are phenotypically Asian. I love the way Fariya introduces this complexity and uses the metaphor and experiences of food to represent this intersection of place and racial identity. A wonderful treasure.

Overall tone of sadness/melancholy becomes a drag after a while. Did the author ever laugh out loud while growing up? Ever have any wild and crazy kid adventures? (Evidently not). The most interesting portions are the discussion of parents and grandparents while they were living in Japan - and when she travels to Japan with her mother. The author's own experiences growing up in the Midwest were surprising typical and a bit mundane, actually. This is better than her follow-up book about living abroad in China, and, overall, it is well written.

This is a food memoir- every detail in every story is tied to the food the author grew up on, the foods of her parents' culture, the foods of celebrations and gatherings. The stories are cute, funny, and often invoked memories of my only childhood even though our food was dramatically different. This is a book I will gladly read again in the future. If you like food, you'll probably enjoy this book.

I was so anxious to read this book- I loved the title and expected some kind of knowledge or insight to come from having read it. Unfortunately I found it to be a very humdrum account of childhood angst in the midwest. I was surprised to learn that the author was a professional journalist; the grammar and punctuation were just awful in places and the flow was practically nonexistent, with the author going back and forth in time as if to teach the reader a lesson about something, but no lesson ever came, except possibly that people of Japanese heritage are annoyingly nonconfrontational and midwestern American men are dirty old predatory geezers. I can live without that type of pigeonholing, thank you.