Food Was Her Country: The Memoir of a Queer Daughter

by Marusya Bociurkiw

How can a god-fearing Catholic, immigrant mother and her godless, bohemian daughter possibly find common ground? FOOD WAS HER COUNTRY is the story of a mother, her queer daughter and their tempestuous culinary relationship. From accounts of 1970s’ macrobiotic potlucks to a dangerous mother-daughter road trip in search of lunch, this book is funny, dark and tender in turn.

Bociurkiw’s Ukraine-born mother is a devotee of the Food Channel and a consummate cook. When she gets cancer of the larynx, she must learn how to eat and speak all over again. Her daughter learns how to feed her mother, but, more crucially, how to let her mother feed her. FOOD WAS HER COUNTRY explores a daughter’s journey of grieving and reconciliation, uncovering the truth of her relationship with her mother only after her death.

Marusya Bociurkiw’s COMFORT FOOD FOR BREAKUPS: THE MEMOIR OF A HUNGRY GIRL was a food writing phenomenon: the world’s first LGBTQ food memoir. With this long-awaited follow-up, FOOD WAS HER COUNTRY draws upon a queer archive of art and activism, stories from her popular food blog, Recipes for Trouble, as well as social histories of food, evoking new beginnings and fresh ways of tasting the world.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Queer, LGBT, Queer Lit, Food

176 pages, Paperback

First published September 14, 2018

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was an affecting, meaningful and difficult read for me. My relationship with my mother, always somewhat fraught as a teen, became estranged for a time after I came out to her at eighteen years old. We've long-since reconciled and are very close, but reading this memoir brought me back to that time.

Marusya and her Ukrainian parents often didn't see eye-to-eye about her life, but this memoir is a good reminder of the love that still courses underneath difficult times. Have tissues or a sleeve handy, that's my recommendation.

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I loved the themes of food and complicated mother - daughter relationship, the writing just wasn't for me. Not in a way that I thought it was objectively bad. It just didn't draw me in. I think others will enjoy this book more than me

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am new to the food memoir genre, but this book was a wonderful introduction to it! I finished it in an evening because I couldn’t put it down! Bociurkiw’s writing is funny, sensitive, and very, very personal.

This would work well with my sophomores when we do our memoir unit (maybe read a chapter or two, especially “A Girl, Waiting”).

[Mya Matteo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a stirring, tender novel that connects history, family, life and love through the beauty and symbolism of food. Well-written and poignant.

[Margo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written collection of essays by a premier feminist filmmaker and author and her relationship with her mother.

[Nada Loughead · Rating 5 out of 5]

See my review at https://canadiancookbooks.ca/food-was...

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short memoir of the author’s relationship to her mother and to food, told in short chapters. It discusses growing up in a Ukrainian-Canadian family, moving away for school and art, coming out as queer, and eventually coming back around to her mother and her family. Not a favourite, but a fine, quick, read.