Grandma Grandpa Cook

A charming, evocative work of oral history, Grandma Grandpa Cook collects the memories and recipes of 40 different grandparents, all of whom emigrated to Hong Kong from mainland China in the years before World War II.

Printed in both Chinese and English and illustrated throughout with photos of the grandparents, their kitchens, and their food, Grandma Grandpa Cook is not organized by traditional recipe categories. Instead, the histories are arranged by theme, with chapters such as "Love," "Bitter Days," "I Learn," and "I Taste."

The accounts are usually short but full of detail and context: the only son whose family catered to his every culinary whim; the daughter whose father was taken away by the occupying Japanese; the woman whose daughter-in-law still can't make pork cake the way her husband likes it.

Paperback. Color photographs throughout.