“Slow Noodles” Shows One Small Act Can Establish a Cornerstone https://ift.tt/5fNUoKq
Lyrical, harrowing, and fiercely feminist, Chantha Nguon’s Slow Noodles is the gripping story of family, survival and food that blends poetic remembrances with 22 unique recipes. A well-educated Cambodian refugee who came from a large family, Nguon lost her home, her family and even her country as Pol Pot ravaged her country and killed millions. Nguon depicts life in refugee camps, where guards disrupt black market sales of supplies and refugees eek out a meager existence on what the camp supplies them. She recounts loving family stories that juxtapose the brutal war and killing that dominated the majority of her life. Food, and particularly the recipes Nguon’s mother passed to Nguon, serves as the foundation of those stories, testifying to the fact that food and recipes are more than just another consumable. They are a legacy that last for generations.
In each chapter, Nguon’s irrepressible spirit shines. As she depicts harsh conditions in which low supplies meant hunger and starvation for many, Nguon shows how food influences people and cultures, and how rice for Cambodians at the time was both punishment and treasure. This recognition leads to larger political critiques throughout the book, specifically of communism. Nguon recounts, “We were lucky to have our lives at all, of course. But they were not lives of our choosing.” She describes how she and others “couldn’t work for our own happiness because we were expected to sacrifice for the happiness of everyone” — a reality that “bore little resemblance to the triumphant smiling workers and prosperous farmers.” However, despite the terrifying and dehumanizing conditions Pol Pot’s dictatorship imposed, Nguon and others never openly talked about resistance. Instead, they quietly embodied it by staving off despair and working together to survive.
Survival is a key theme in Slow Noodles, and Nguon provides readers strong lessons about how to survive under the harshest economic and socio-political conditions. These lessons, too, are a testimony to the relationship Nguon had with her mother, Mae, since Nguon learned from Mae many of the lessons, as well as most of the recipes. Thus, Mae, too, becomes a driving force in the book, and the legacy of cultural and culinary wisdom she bestowed to Nguon is undeniable thanks to Nguon’s portrayal of Mae. Nguon and Mae’s story, however, is also one of loss. After Mae dies, grief and longing perpetuate Nguon’s life. As Nguon leaves refugee camps, establishes a life and has children of her own, she more and more misses Mae and turns to those recipes during the times in which she finds herself wishing her children had their grandmother. She asserts, “My mother taught me that when you feel powerless, you can always find at least one thing to do, however small it may be.” Thus, the book carries a necessary lesson about an individual’s agency and how one small act can establish a cornerstone on which future generations can build.
Via Mae and Nguon’s relationship, Slow Noodles also explores the role of women in reshaping a society. Part of the book focuses on Nguon’s advocacy work for rural women who desire an education. After years of struggling, she and her husband open the Stung Treng Women’s Development Center, a weaving center where women also receive literacy classes. At the center, Nguon and her team teach women how to be financially and socially independent so that they do not have to resort to working in brothels or garment factories. “Together,” Nguon writes, “we are learning that it’s better for a woman to cast her own light, like a sun that nurtures others. We are, I hope, a new kind of Cambodian woman — both strong and soft, and terribly improper.” In Nguon’s portrayals of women who develop their own agency and are better able to advocate for their own and their children’s futures, readers see a glimmer of something that didn’t necessarily exist in Nguon’s narratives depicting Pol Pot’s reign — hope.
Slow Noodles explores the concept of hope very carefully. At one point, Nguon reflects that hope “can be dangerous” when one has no “power to enact the thing hoped for.” Her assertions regarding optimism are also valuable, especially in a world where, for some, toxic positivity and optimism have become mainstays of daily life. “To be of use, optimism needs to set something into motion. Hope without enterprise ages poorly, leaving an aftertaste of bitterness and apathy.” In these contemplations, readers see that Nguon’s book is not simply another culinary memoir. Such anecdotes remind readers that even for daily living, certain recipes are required for personal success and mindful living.
As positive and inspiring Slow Noodles is, despite the brutality it portrays, it also incorporates sly critiques about how capitalism undermines societies which once embraced the power of helping one another within the community. At one point, Nguon reflects, “We Cambodians had gotten a taste of the Dollar, and suddenly we wanted to be paid to help each other — or in some cases, paid not to bother.” This reflection transforms into the philosophical assertion that, “Selfishness was an infection that resisted treatment.” Within these critiques, Nguon returns to the concept of generational legacy, reminding readers that Cambodia could not be rebuilt within five or ten years. Instead, it “would take generations to restore what we had lost and to begin advancing the clock again from one minute before Year Zero.” Thus, Nguon advises a “slow noodles” approach — “rolled out one by one, deliberately and with love.”
Unforgettably wise, Slow Noodles is a testament to the transformative strength an individual possesses during life’s darkest moments, and it is a reminder that something as small as a recipe has the ability to save the one who carries it and, like hope, is best when shared.
NONFICTION Slow Noodles Chantha Nguon with Kim Green
Algonquin Books
February 20, 2024
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