Food Memoir with Rebecca May Johnson and Angela Hui
A conversation between Angela Hui and Rebecca May Johnson, recorded just after their respective debut non-fiction books had been published. An exploration of the importance of valuing and demonstrating labour within cooking, of novelty versus repetition, and of the idea of rejecting food writing as a category.
You can find Takeaway by Angela Hui and Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson at all good bookshops now.
Mentions:
Cathy Park Hong's part poetry part memoir (Angela)
Audre Lorde - Zami (Rebecca)
Luce Giard and Michel de Certeau -The Practice of Everyday Life (Rebecca)
Ocean Vuong - On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Angela)
Nuar Alsadir on how to be your own freaky clown (Rebecca)
You can listen back to Rebecca on a very early episode of Lecker here...
This is the first of three episodes this month about contemporary personal food writing and memoir - stay tuned for more!
Ben McDonald creates original illustrations for Lecker - find them on the Lecker Twitter and Instagram.
If you’re in a position to, please considering supporting Lecker. Buy merch here and become a Patron at patreon.com/leckerpodcast. This month's exclusive episode will include more from this conversation between Angela and Rebecca!
You can find out more about how to support Lecker (including one-off donations) at leckerpodcast.com/support.
Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.
Transcript below!
Lecker22_E8_RMJxAH_1
Sun, Oct 02, 2022 3:34PM • 56:08
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
book, memoir, people, cooking, writing, write, food, angela, thinking, read, feel, mum, life, labour, takeaway, racism, grew, rebecca, parents, family
SPEAKERS
Rebecca May Johnson, Angela Hui, Lucy, Lucy Dearlove
Lucy Dearlove 00:03
This is Lecker. I'm Lucy Dearlove. I don't know if it's an after effect of the publishing industry dealing with two years of lockdowns or some other reason. But there's been an avalanche of incredible books published recently. And particularly books of personal and memoir writing related to food. But what does it mean to write a food memoir or to be an author of personal food writing in 2022? This month, I've got three episodes lined up for you. Interviews with the writers of some of my favorite food writing of recent times, beginning with this one.
Angela Hui 00:46
It's just such an exposing thing. I think with memoir writing.
Rebecca May Johnson 00:51
I was in denial about memoir until I started writing. And then I realized that like memoir was a really big aspect of it and drawing on life.
Angela Hui 00:58
Part of yourself is out there. And other people know so much about you.
Rebecca May Johnson 01:03
To do that you have to be able to write about yourself in some way. And that is really hard.
Angela Hui 01:09
And when my brother read it, he was just saying like, Oh, this is just like a fraction. This is like the PG friendly version!
Rebecca May Johnson 01:15
I wanted to give that attention, that intellectual attention that I've been giving so long to literature...to cooking. You have to be your own type of freaky clown.
Angela Hui 01:25
You kinda, you do!
Lucy Dearlove 01:31
On this episode, Angela Hui and Rebecca May Johnson. Angela Hui and Rebecca MayJohnson are responsible for two of my favourite books of the year. Angela's book Takeaway is a memoir based on her experiences growing up in her family's Chinese takeaway in the Welsh Valleys. And Rebecca's book Small Fires, is an "electrifying innovative memoir, where she rewrites the kitchen as a vital source of knowledge and revelation". I was with Angela and Rebecca a few months ago, and they started talking to each other about the writing of their books. And I rudely interrupted them to ask if they'd be up for postponing the conversation so I could record it for Lecker. They very generously agreed. And so a few weeks ago, Angela and I got the train to Harwich to where Rebecca lives and recorded it. Just to mention, before we start, if you haven't read one or both of the books, and you're planning to, there is some discussion of key events and kind of sections in the books. So if you prefer to be spoiler free, then I recommend you read before listening to this. And also a content note: that is some mentioned in passing of domestic abuse and gambling addiction, as well as racism, as these themes present in Angela's book. I started by asking both Angela and Rebecca, if they had read any personal or memoir writing centred around food while writing their books or beforehand, and what impact it had left on them.
Angela Hui 03:07
I don't know. I'm trying to think like...st the end of my book, I wrote a like a reading list, which I thought really helped, that's kind of just like the research that I did throughout and I feel like, I felt like it was just more as a way of like, respecting others, like this is what I read. And it was almost like acknowledging those that came before me that also helped. I'm gonna have a little look. But it was just when I wrote this it was like during lockdown. So I was reading a lot more on like anti Asian hate crime and just reading up on like, East and Southeast Asian offers. And yeah, I read a lot of like Cathy Park Hong, like it was like part memoir, part poetry, but a lot of that stuff like resonated.
Rebecca May Johnson 04:02
I mean, I make a lot of citations in the book. At the end, I have works referenced in order of their appearance, but most of them are not food books, but um, I guess. Yeah, I don't know. Let me think about this. Let me think about this. Thinking of memoirs...
Lucy Dearlove 04:21
That's interesting that both of your answers to this were non food books
Rebecca May Johnson 04:23
I mean, I've enjoyed stuff in the past, like, you know, Elizabeth, David's essays and stuff, but actually, I don't even cite her in this book at all. But a memoir that I read in the year before writing the book was Audre Lorde's book, Zami, which isn't specifically a food memoir. It's about growing up in Harlem in the 30s, and the 40s as a black child in a very racial...racially segregated environment. And obviously doesn't relate to my personal biography at all. But there is an amazing use of food in the book as a way of telling you about her life, about the political situation at the time, her relationship with her mother, and pleasure, so much about pleasure and sex in that book that's to do with food. And the kind of ways that food breaks down boundaries were different between different categories of life in Audre Lorde's book, I thought was very interesting and inspiring and helpful.
Lucy 04:37
Yeah, I think you write about a picnic, right? That she goes on with her family.
Rebecca May Johnson 05:31
Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's so many good food points in the book. But this one really kind of crystallizes so much of what their family was going through at the time, which, like, they were going on a family trip to Washington that she was really, really excited about. Her mum knew that they were going to be discriminated against, that they were not going to be able to go into some of the nice places because of racial segregation. So she made this incredibly elaborate and beautiful picnic. That kind of was like a way of attending to and respecting and loving every single part of her family's body and their life. And it was just just so moving. And when they got there, they couldn't go to the ice cream parlour. And they got made to leave by the white waitress and...but they didn't miss out on any pleasure in that day or we.....her mum did everything that she could meant that they didn't by, by making this beautiful picnic. Yeah. So yeah, that's not like...I'm white, obviously. And I didn't grow up in that situation. But the the way in which Lorde weaves, weaves through food through her memoir, I found very interesting and inspiring. For me as well.aazctually...I don't think I cite it in the book. But there's this social theorist called Luce Giard, who was part of a big project called the Practice of Everyday Life from I think the late 70s in France, led by this sociologist called Michel de Certeau. I first encountered that work through meeting my partner who's a social scientist. And I kind of was rifling through the book and it had this whole section on cooking and doing. So there's long passages, and it's like a real sort of huge social study of France in the late 70s and early 80s, I think, and big studies of like food, shopping practices, and looking at things like that as a way of understanding society on a broader basis. And it's a microcosm of that. And this is one very poetic passage that Giard wrote about how culinary knowledge is passed through generations, specifically of women. And it's something incredibly romantic about it, sort of the gesture of your hand, and I will honour your life through this gesture, through reenacting these gestures. However, I won't inherit the servitude that you suffered, I don't want to inherit the servitude that you suffered. But I do want to inherit these beautiful gestures of cooking with your hands, this knowledge that's held in the body. And reading that theory was, was so exciting and made me think about the richness of the knowledge that's carried in the body, and how that's part of the biography. So that's not I guess food memoir and in a traditional sense, but it helps me understand what I could do with writing about food, or like how I could try and take it seriously.
Angela Hui 08:22
I didn't realize when writing the book, there's just so much research...I think I've read more than like actually writing, like researching other people's writingright? Like similar food memoirs, I think was like Olivia Potts's, like what was her book? A Half Baked Idea. Like Felicity Cloake's, One More Croissant For The Road. Like similar formats where they had recipes throughout, and Dolly Alderton's book as well, which had like recipes and it breaks it up in between. But again, it was like slightly different I would say it's not exactly like food - well, other than Olivia's one. But it was interesting - like you said that similar to you how reading other work that wasn't exactly food that influenced you. I also read Ocean Vuong's On Earth, We're Briefly Gorgeous, which is about him finding his sexuality and living in...I don't know where he lived. It was like in the middle of nowhere essentially, like similar upbringing. Like almost like the Midwest where it's like there's not much going on and you feel the same kind of resonate...like you resonate with the same thing.
Rebecca May Johnson 09:27
In a way I think sometimes the category food writing is like a false category in a sense because it's writing and it's in dialogue with so many other forms of literature and writing and I don't know...somehow just food writing is almost inadequate as a category.
Angela Hui 09:50
Absolutely.
Rebecca May Johnson 09:51
And also somehow depoliticises sometimes...well, I wrote about about this in my book as well, but you know, Angela's book is so political in what it does and its impact, and you know, it's funny and lively and and all those things as well and, and compelling etc. But it's also a profoundly political book about, you know, migration and racism and you know, so much stuff and language and understanding. And, yeah, I kind of feel like everyone should read it!
Angela Hui 10:24
I feel the same with your book. It's like, even though food is...our books are food books, but I feel like food is almost like an afterthought. It's like, there's so many other aspects of it. With yours, it was also trying to find like, as a coming of age as well, both are coming of age, but you're different periods of time, I feel like you with yours. Like I said the bit before, the bit about you in Berlin, just trying to find yourself changing your exterior to try and fit in and, you know, different surroundings...
Rebecca May Johnson 10:55
And you talk about outfits as well.
Angela Hui 10:57
Yeah, like, I feel like that's where really resonated with your book, it was very much how changing who you are to try and fit in, trying to fit into like society, and not really ever being happy with yourself and finding yourself. And then just food just so happens to be part of it as well, I think.
Rebecca May Johnson 11:15
Actually, in different ways, as well, we, we both write a lot about labour, you know, different types of work and thinking about that work and the role of that work, and how that work is valued or not valued or seen or not seen and stuff. Which...you know, again, like, that's also I think, part of the political aspect of significantly a huge intervention that your book makes into how British society understands itself is bearing witness to that labour and what it really means and what it's really takes....yeah, I mean, I, I grew up in a rural place. And... really sadly, we didn't have access to a Chinese takeaway, because there was nothing close enough. But, you know, like, as you say, there's, like, there's the counter, and then there's everything that goes on behind it. And it's a story that is just not told enough. And it's just a real space of heroic acts of labour, on behalf of your parents and you and like, it's just incredible...it's like a really dramatic space as well, like, so much of life and so much knowledge and so much, you know, it's just incredible. Yeah.
Angela Hui 12:26
I mean, it's the same with you, it was like you, when you write about how you worked in a fish and chip shop, I mean, probably the most perfect passage about saveloys, and comparing that to like, eating...it was like, the odds and ends and basically, and how it was just like the entrails of everything. But like, it just shows the, like, in a similar sense, we're working in these type of environments and spaces that aren't given as much day of light. And the stories that aren't really told through that, and I loved the, you know, is working in like, like, the everyday situations that people often oversee.
Rebecca May Johnson 13:04
Because I'm writing about cooking in my 20s as a student...I mean, because I did a PhD, I was a student for a really long time, but just moving house a lot, I guess, yeah, thinking about just domestic labour as well. And like, I think a lot of people struggle to value, the work that they do in domestic space, and think about it as interesting and funny and knowledgeable. And even my mum, like my mum's a great cook. And that's the real space in which she speaks, in a way, through her cooking. But she always plays it down, you know, always. And she won't even claim her own knowledge sometimes. And she shies away from that, and oh, I just did this. Oh, it wasn't really that, you know, and there's always this minimizing of that work. And I just really wanted to expand, you know, give pages and pages to, to those everyday acts of thinking and working in the kitchen.
Lucy Dearlove 14:02
Yeah, I think that's one of the kind of parallels between your book, both your books that occurred to me is that the crossing of that boundary between the domestic and the outside world. So I think in your book, Rebecca, I really loved how cooking was written about alongside fashion, alongside art, alongside clubbing, alongside sex, like I think it doesn't often get considered in those...in that position. And I think - and even like for you Angela the like, physical boundary of the counter, like a lot of people just would never consider what goes on behind that. Like that's a very like, it's a really like nice metaphorical and like actual boundary. That it...like the domestic is also like, there was no line for you like that was, it was very blurred between like domestic and business and, and food. Yeah, so I think it's yeah, it's interesting. One of the first questions I had, I had to ask you both was, what were the similarities you thought between, between your books, but like it's come up naturally. There are so many parallels. Like on the surface of it they might seem like quite different books, but there's actually a lot in common. So did you both know, when you were writing that it was a coming of age book?
Angela Hui 15:11
Well, I feel like it's natural, because it's been all my life. So it is just writing my life. And it was throughout all my childhood. You know, I was born in Wales, and started working when I was eight. And when I was a baby, my mum would just put me in a chip box under the pantry, in the like, under the stairs it's like a little pantry where we had like metal stacks of, you know, like, there was like, eggs and flour and sugar, everything we need, and there was like a little, like shutter. So I don't know how I slept because it's like right next to the extractor fan. So my mum would just check in on me every now and then. So yeah, as a baby, I was like, in the chip box. And I would run around and sort of feel like it was just a natural...had to be kind of a coming of age, because there was so much well, it was so much. It was my life, essentially, up until, like, I was 26. Pretty much so it was like such a big portion of it. And, yeah, I feel like it just came to me naturally, I think.
Rebecca May Johnson 16:17
I was very resistant to that. For ages. Even the word memoir was something I really resisted a lot.
Lucy Dearlove 16:23
Why?
Rebecca May Johnson 16:24
My publisher tried really hard to get it in the title? And I didn't let them. Because, you know, for commercial reasons. Like, I think that, you know, epic is like, what is an epic? Because I guess, I don't know, probably because I did spend too long at university, but no, not really. Anyway, but I guess I thought of as like an intellectual pursuit at first. You know, it took me ages to think about what the book was going to be. It's very, I guess, it's quite a strange book in some ways, like, the, the, it's not chronological. What is the logic behind the chapter progression? It just sort of emerged. But it's not...but the the progression is maybe more to do with gestures or feelings or thought, like the movement of different thoughts rather than...rather than my life. So so the, the book is not bound to my, my biography chronologically at all. When I was thinking about the book, I was like, you know, I want to give this intellect...because, you know, I wanted to draw on my PhD studies. And I wanted to give that attention, that intellectual attention that I've been giving so long to literature, to cooking. And I think I thought, oh, you know, my life, why is my life relevant or interesting to this in a way, even though all of the knowledge that I had, that I wanted to write about really came out of cooking myself, but I didn't want me to be the focus. And in a way, although I...there is memoir in the book. It's not about me in a really intense way. Like as a person, I feel like, I use myself as a way to explore ideas. But I didn't...I used the...going to sound like a nob now. But I use the I, as in the pronoun I, as a space of exploring these ideas and asking these questions, rather than being confessional. My book is not confessional, really. And actually, I do think I remain at a distance in the book, ultimately,
Angela Hui 18:48
I felt that too. I felt like when I was reading about you and your life, but it just didn't feel like oh, it's it's all about me and my story and my life. But it also felt like it was everyone's I if that made sense.
Rebecca May Johnson 19:00
Interesting. Yeah, I wanted...and people, other people who aren't me are also not named. So everyone who's not me, everyone is not I is you. That was very purposeful because I wanted there not to be a hierarchy of relationships in the book. Because one of the things I wanted to express about cooking and food, something that I found out through living so I guess that's the memoir aspect of it, is that there is an erotics and an intimacy and an erotic and an intimate dimension to food and cooking for all people, whoever they are, they sort of frissons, those moments, wanting to sate the desire of someone, you know, that's very intimate, wanting to make someone feel pleasure, that's very intimate. And I think significantly, we often try to exclude the, the sort of, the erotic and the intimate, from from how we talk about food and because it's almost too much, you know, to...it almost feels inappropriate. But of course, we're taking something from outside ourselves and putting it in our body. Now, what other context does that take place? I mean, depends on your preferences, obviously, but, you know, often in a sexual context. And so it's not to make it sort of weird or pervy, or whatever. Although I think there are some slightly horny moments in the book...
Lucy Dearlove 20:19
And that's fine.
Rebecca May Johnson 20:20
But, but it's more like I wanted to sort of desanitize that aspect of what food is about in one's life. Which...it is part of lots of moments of physical, you know, personal difficulty, or, you know, desire and discovery and all those things. And so in that sense, I draw on memoir, I draw on lived experience to ask these questions. So I guess I'm like taking the methods that I was trained in from doing a PhD, and then I'm taking it into the kitchen. And because of that, I guess, because I thought that at the beginning, I struggled to think of it as memoir, but now I've come to a completely. I've made my peace with the idea of memoir, and I see it as a really important tool for thinking. And Angela's book has so many moments of theorizing and thinking in it, drawing on everyday life as well. Yeah. And yeah.
Lucy Dearlove 21:15
And did you find it...I mean, I think what struck me about, I think, especially your book, Angela is like writing, from the point of view of your younger self. How did it feel to kind of revisit that self?
Angela Hui 21:29
I think like a few people have asked, I was like...a lot of people say book writing is very therapeutic, which it is in a sense, but it was really traumatic as well, because it's such a personal thing. And there's things I never really talked about with anyone else, like domestic abuse, or my dad's gambling, and, you know, having a very dysfunctional family and all these self identity worries, and just, you know, worrying about, like what others would perceive of me. And it just really sent me into like, anxiety, like madness. And then afterwards, I had to get therapy after book writing. I think I was really worried about what other people would say, like, my, a lot of my family members, especially in Asian culture, it's very much like...in Asian culture is much everyone keeps to themselves. They don't talk about certain things, it's very taboo. And especially in topics like these, a lot of people would shy away from, and you know, even my aunties, who've like said about the book afterwards, they're like, Oh, why have you written this book? And I think when I told my parents when...I'm writing a book, the first thing they said, like, why are you writing a book? Like, it's no, we're not interesting in any way. But, yeah.
Rebecca May Johnson 22:46
That's...their feeling that you know, you just expressed there is the fact that you've gone and done it is also what's...one part of what's so significant about it.
Angela Hui 22:53
Yeah, I think what really shocked me is just so many people that resonated with it. And then obviously, like, this is very much my life. But it also resonates with familiar with takeaway kids, but not just takeaway kids, but people who grew up in pubs or people who worked in fish and chips or grew up in fish and chips, or never really had a childhood that was kind of robbed with them, they all kind of resonate. And, yeah, it's just really, I don't know, I've tried to think of the words to say.
Rebecca May Johnson 23:21
It's very brave.
Angela Hui 23:22
I mean, I wouldn't...I would say, I don't know, at the time of writing, I didn't feel like I was very brave. I just felt like I was almost like writing a diary, or a diary that I never really kept before when working. I think someone asked me before asking, like, did you ever keep a diary when you're working in the takeaway and I never did, because...
Rebecca May Johnson 23:40
When's the time?
Angela Hui 23:41
I didn't have time, I was doing my homework. And it was almost like throughout childhood, you kind of living through trauma, and you just have to deal with it. And this is it and you'd never really acknowledge it. And until a couple of years later, when we sold the shop in 2018, you kind of reevaluate and you really miss the time like then you get really nostalgic of the shop and having the shop was almost like the sixth family member, because you put the shop before your own needs, you know, you'd always prep work, you wake up, go to wholesalers and buy ingredients, and you'd always be back before work for...be back home at 5pm for work. And then when we sold the shop, it was just trying to reconfigure like who we are in our lives and try to figure out our own paths. And I felt like that's what really kind of made me want to write the book in the first place. So is trying to...first off as I document this really unique but strange experience in life growing up in a Chinese takeaway, but also, yeah, just trying to put it to pen to like understand it, because I feel like a lot of people who grew up in that environment never really had the chance to like, oh, yeah, that actually did happen to us. Like, you don't realise when you're actually living it and working with it, I think, yeah.
Rebecca May Johnson 25:08
By making that narrative, you've given people the space, you've made a space in which people can have those conversations with themselves and think and reflect... I mean, from the other side, like, I'm white, we're similar in age, I remember as well, the casual, horrible racism of that period. And it's such an important thing and brave thing. And it's so...that you've documented...it's awful that you've ever had to do it or experience it...from the other side and, you know, everyone should, every fucking white person in the UK should read that. Because, you know, it's just, it was just everywhere, you know. And still, we're like, things like Little Britain, I guess that kind of horrible strain of humour kind of goes on in some kind of places.
Lucy Dearlove 25:57
So normalized.
Rebecca May Johnson 25:58
It was so normalized, like there was so much....I mean, that period of time was so fucking weird politically. Like, I mean, on a different note, like I wrote very briefly about in my book, What Not To Wear. Yeah. And I went back on you, I went on YouTube and watched some old episodes. And the absolute violence of the language that they use to the people's bodies that they had on the show, the heinous fatphobia and hatred,
Lucy Dearlove 26:25
And we just internalized it.
Rebecca May Johnson 26:26
And that was the norm. So..it was such a popular TV show, I remember be like, with my, you know, talking about my school friends, and it was like, I'm like this, therefore, I can't wear that or do that, or whatever.
Lucy Dearlove 26:37
It was only reading that in your book that I was like, Oh, my god.
Rebecca May Johnson 26:40
Yeah, you should go and watch some old episodes on YouTube. And also, for people, I imagined for people who also experienced it, like having it laid out there like that. It must, it must be really helpful.
Angela Hui 26:52
Yeah. Like, like, I think it was very therapeutic in the sense where you address a lot of the racism that's not really talked about. But again, it just like internalize a lot of it, where you just feel like, Oh, this is just part and parcel of the job, I do just have to deal with it. And my brother posted about the book cos, he'd finally read it, even though he's like, read, he'd read like, some first draft but not, like, from start to finish. And he made a post about it, and it made me cry so much. I was like, on the tube reading it. And obviously, it's told from my perspective. And even though they were like my early colleagues, so they worked in the kitchen, as well as front of house as well. And they obviously deal with the racism as well. But he said that, you know, I never realised that you were very sexualized, as well as a young age, because you're, you're on the front lines and the counter, you're dealing with all these drunk customers. And you're...these like old 60 or 70 year old men asking you to marry you, like a 12 year old girl, and it's quite fucked up. Sorry, am I allowed to swear?
Lucy Dearlove 27:55
You are.
Angela Hui 27:56
Great, I'm gonna swear some more. And yeah, it's just really messed up time that you, you never really think to reexamine. And when you look back on it, you're writing it and you're faced with it again, you're like, Oh, my God, like, did I really do like, I can't believe I just brushed it off. I can't believe I didn't say anything then. I think I was such a shy, awkward kid. And I think it didn't help either being one of the very few Asian families.
Rebecca May Johnson 28:23
Well it's implicitly dangerous. Like it's, it's - well and explicitly, as you write about in the book, to stick up for yourself was something that could cause danger to you, physical and other types of danger. Like it was very threatening. It's a very threatening situation as a 12 year old, you shouldn't have to be addressing the racism or and sexualization of an, of an older person. Like, it's a totally unequal distribution of power. Like there's no way you could have done...nothing. You know,
Lucy Dearlove 28:51
That's so interesting, though, that like, even though obviously, you had very similar experiences to your brothers, there's obviously just like, parts of each others' stories that you've never like, witnessed or talked about. Yeah, must have been like, quite traumatic to relive those.
Angela Hui 29:03
Yeah, but in a way, I'm like, I'm...I was debating for ages, whether it includes certain details, like the right like a lot of the racism and some of our very personal problem, family problems. And, you know, I spoke to my partner and some family members as well saying, like, I don't know whether to include these things. Like I never even talked to my parents about certain things. Because, again, in Asian culture, we just don't talk about feelings. We don't talk about how we're feeling. We don't talk about mental health, like those things don't really exist. And I was...yeah, I was debating whether to write and I'm...and my partner was like, if you're not writing these things, I don't think you're kind of writing your like authentic self in a way. You're kind of sugarcoating the actual experience of it.
Rebecca May Johnson 29:47
You couldn't say it, so you have to write it.
Angela Hui 29:49
Yeah, I feel like that's how it was really, you had to just write...it was almost like word vomit to page and this is what the result is and...Yeah, I don't know, I feel like some people even asked they were like, is this actually a true story or was it dramaticised? And it was like, no these things actually happened.
Rebecca May Johnson 30:07
It would be more dramatic if you told them everything!
Angela Hui 30:09
Yeah! And like this is...I told my mum, my mum, like so, you know, she had, my parents haven't read it, because it can't speak English or read English. But when my brother read it, he was just saying like, Oh, this is just like a fraction. This is like, the PG friendly version, like the stuff outside of the book is like, even worse, I feel like I've just kind of filtered out a lot of the worse, like the even worse stuff for that is a bit more palatable. Yeah, I just, yeah. Well, how was it for you, Rebecca, for your book writing? I want to know, because you said you went to therapy afterwards.
Rebecca May Johnson 30:47
No, before. Before, yeah, I was struggling to start the book. And I got...I got a grant from the Society of Authors to help, to have...a work in progress grant to help support the writing. And I use that to start some of that to start therapy, which is great, because then the, the week I started therapy I was able to start writing, having not been able to, but I think it released, it released something. And what I said about being in denial about memoir, like I was in denial about memoir, until I started writing. And then I realized that like memoir is a really big aspect of it and drawing on life. And but to do that, you have to be able to write about yourself in some way. And that is really hard. And to contemplate yourself at different points in time and what you're feeling or the difficulties you're going through. And so whilst it's not confessional, I suppose, I'm still writing about things I'm doing at different times. Sometimes I teach creative writing, and I said to students, recently, now you can't just write a book that your parents would approve of, because then what would be in it, like nothing. It'd be like a weird, sanitized, fairy tale, do you know what I mean, because that's, you know, obviously, parents want everything to be okay for their kids, and they all they, they don't want, anyway, whatever. So you know, even just writing about things like sex, sexuality, horniness, my gender, like I write quite a lot about my feelings about my own gender. Quite early in the book. There's a real like...
Lucy Dearlove 32:20
Very early.
Rebecca May Johnson 32:21
Very early in the book, like, straight in there. And I wrote, you know, in quite an erotic way, writing about apron wearing. But I'm also bringing in sort of some gender theory that I read early in my 20s, that made a big impact on me, and, and feelings about that kind of stuff. So that's yeah, gender, and sexual things like that in my life and other points, and I've been depressed or had fatigue. Towards the end of the book, I write a lot about me about having fatigue and sort of not being able to get up or do anything. And I didn't want to...and yeah, someone was saying they're surprised at how much like at the end of the book, and that one that sort of the final big chapter I write a lot about not cooking and being on the sofa and feeling crap and like hating what I'm cooking and just sort of not being interested in it. And I wanted to keep the difficulty in the text. I didn't want to have a falsely sanitized impression of happy cooking, the happy cook all the time, because that isn't the case. And yeah, I wanted to present the complexity of cooking in...such as I'd encountered it. And that includes being totally unable to cook when I have fatigue. When I have fatigue, which I get periodically, I can't do anything. Just have to...like I lose cognitive function, I just have to like, lie down or watch TV or something. I can't really walk around, like anything like that. Yeah, I wanted to include that stuff as well. And that was...I guess that was a real decision. Yeah, I don't know, not to pretend that things are different to what they were.
Angela Hui 34:01
But I think it's just such an exposing thing. I think with memoir writing, it/s such a like, that's the sort of thing I'm still trying to wrap my head around is the exposing thing because it's such a raw thing you're...part of yourself is out there. And other people know so much about you, that's the thing that really terrifies me.
Rebecca May Johnson 34:18
Yeah and it's like looking in the mirror and seeing all the difficult things about yourself and not keeping the shitty things about yourself off the page. And like, it's hard because usually if you're given an account of yourself to someone in casual conversation or you meet for the first time or on your CV or in a job application or whenever on in other occasions, you make a sort of image of yourself. You exclude all that all that crap usually.
Lucy Dearlove 34:19
Yeah, you self edit.
Rebecca May Johnson 34:23
Exactly. And one of the nicest things that someone said who read an early copy of the book was that it made them feel okay about not, not cooking, and they felt it gave them space to not want to cook because people don't have to cook if they don't want to. I didn't want to write this...I'm evangelizing and evangelizing texts about cooking. Like, I wanted to document its richness, but I also wanted to document that it is work and that it's difficult and you can't always do it and, and you might also feel shit about doing it and hate your own meals sometimes and everything like that. Because, yeah, you don't have to pretend it's great all the time.
Angela Hui 35:23
Yeah, like, I love that as well with like, that's another like similarity in our book I felt was just food isn't always like, Oh, this bringing together happiness, you know, bundle of joy was also like, food was also very painful. And thing that you kind of reject, you don't even want at times. And I remember there was like one argument that I had with my dad, and he's trying to make it up for me through one of my favourite foods, steamed egg. I was just like, how do I accept this food? When we just had this massive argument? And I don't even really want it. It's like...
Rebecca May Johnson 35:58
It's such a difficult moment in the book.
Angela Hui 36:00
But yeah, and you, it's almost the same as you. It's like, I don't even have the energy or the same, like when you're so fatigued, and your...food is the last thing on your mind.
Rebecca May Johnson 36:13
Yeah. And you, when you're physically unable to do it, the amount of work and thinking that actually requires is so evident, because you can't do it. Yeah. And it's suddenly, and then you realize as well, how much people who do it all the time, like, you know, my mum, for example, growing up, like, how much minimizing there is of the work that is involved? Yeah. And that's also the you know, the thing about the takeaway, isn't it? Like, yeah, it's ...forthe consumer, it's something of convenience, even like a minor delay in your delivery makes people angry as you kind of account for the book. But on the other, on the other side, there's huge amounts of labour and chopping it and child labour and everything, you know, and it it's not..there's nothing convenient about it. For those who are making it is huge.
Lucy Dearlove 37:02
I think one of the things that struck me about both of your books that felt quite different from I think a lot of food writing is like the focus on routine and repetition. And like doing the same things over and over again, cooking the same things over and over again, like whether by choice or necessity. I feel like a lot of food writing focuses on like the new or the novel. Was that like, I mean, obviously, it was just part of... it was a part and parcel of, like, the thing that you were writing about. But was that something you were conscious about?
Angela Hui 37:30
I think I was too. Because, you know, working in the takeaway, it was very much like you said, it was like a production line, because you're dealing with work, you know, we had massive vats of egg fried rice, we had to like get through every day. And it was just cooking the same thing again and again. So you kind of lose the joy out of it. Because it you become disassociated with food. Because you kind of see it as like, oh, as a way of making money, you lose the joy of it. And I think that's why I kind of really fell out of love with food for such a long time. And I wanted to come..when I first started, when I moved to London, to find my own way and have my own job. I wanted to work in fashion because I was like, the complete opposite end of food. And I wanted to have a very like, yeah, very my own way and then realised I hate fashion. It took me a really long time to kind of fall back in love with food again, to actually be okay with it. I think there is like good and bad in like repetition and like cooking the same things again, and again. There's a lot of comfort in that as well how, you know, we always had found..like, regardless of working in the shop, and all the other things that we had to do: prepping and making sure we went to like Chinese school and regular school as well and helping out and deliveries. My parents always made sure that we always had a great family meal, which was such a big thing. And that was such a central pillar. And again, it didn't really matter that we always ate the same thing.
Rebecca May Johnson 38:58
And it was for you, though, it wasn't for the customer.
Angela Hui 39:00
Yeah it wasjust for us. It was a very sacred thing. And sometimes I took those for granted thinking like, I really don't want family meal. I don't want rice. I specifically said to my mum, like I want burger and chips or, you know, beans on toast like all my other white friends. An escape from the routine?
Rebecca May Johnson 39:17
Yeah. It seems like, like, what Lucy was saying about repetition, and you were just saying..you had no escape from it. You know, you have to come back to it on your own terms. When you're older, when you'd had the opportunity to refuse it and to turn away from it for a period of time. So you could come back to it on your own terms. It wasn't something you had no choice about.
Angela Hui 39:44
Yeah, I feel as I've grown up, it's like almost like a fresh pair of eyes or reexamining or like falling back in love with it again.
Rebecca May Johnson 39:51
You have the freedom to choose it now.
Angela Hui 39:52
Yeah, exactly rather than being forced on me. But yeah..
Rebecca May Johnson 39:57
Because obviously you have the residual expertise of that period. When it was forced on you, but you don't have to do that work all the time.
Angela Hui 40:04
Yeah. And, yeah, I feel like I do look back on those, like family meals with such fondness. And I really miss them, like my mum and my dad made so much effort to just making this, you know, very elaborate...there would always make it over the top. But you know, there was only five of us but they would probably feed 10 of us, you know, go above and beyond. And as a child, I just was such a brat. And I never really appreciated that and everything that they did for us. And I think that's what I wanted to include in the book was just like, it's almost like fantasizing about that, again, as an adult. When I reread it and written it again, those family meals...
Rebecca May Johnson 40:47
Maybe you're experiencing what your parents were trying to do.
Angela Hui 40:51
Yeah. Just trying to make sure that we had, you know, had enough food to eat for one because my parents came from such like, troubled childhoods, you know, my mom growing up in the Cultural Revolution, and my dad had a very scrappy childhood in Hong Kong, like dropping out of school since he was 13. So they always had, you know, they both had never, never enough to eat. So it was always a priority to make sure that we were fed.
Rebecca May Johnson 41:19
I mean, you don't have to feel guilty about about as a child because you're only a child. Yeah, it was also challenging from, from what you write about in your book.
Angela Hui 41:28
I feel like I do feel a lot of other takeaway kids that I have spoken to also feel that same guilt, where they all all felt like a brat, they all felt like they were very, they all just felt they were very ungrateful, they were just very harsh to their parents, they were just lashing out on their parents because of this environment that we're in. And you know, having to have the obligation, like you have to work, but you also want to be obliged to help your family because this is your family.
Rebecca May Johnson 41:58
It is impossible situation, though. And it's a structure. It's a systemic, you know, the fact of it being so hard to survive financially and migrating. And, you know, that is...from what you write about in your book, like those demands made it really hard for everyone and to have feelings and have a family and show your care for people in that context is really hard.
Angela Hui 42:19
Yeah.
Lucy Dearlove 42:21
What about routine and repetition for you, Rebecca? Like at the heart of the books, there's a, there's a cooking, you know, this idea of cooking the same recipe over and over again.
Rebecca May Johnson 42:30
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting...I've also been thinking recently about that comment you made about the focus on novelty. And I think that is..that's a capitalist thing.
Lucy Dearlove 42:40
Yeah.
Rebecca May Johnson 42:42
I mean, literally, Marx writes about it in Capital.
Lucy Dearlove 42:44
Oh really?
Rebecca May Johnson 42:45
Yeah, that it always needs innovation to..as a way of generating more more capital. And on the whole, innovations, technological innovations are a way of making, either generating new sources of profit, or making things more efficient, so you can have greater...
Lucy Dearlove 43:01
Yeah, of course.
Rebecca May Johnson 43:01
Anyway, sorry, we don't need to go through that! Because actually, most people's cooking is quite...most people's daily cooking in the home is relatively repetitive. Yeah. And that is both very kind of grounding, in a sense that it is something that you return to, that you help...and through which you understand yourself over time through each, each time you return to a dish over a long period of time, it becomes a way of engaging your mood or where...you know. So it's so many different things, because you cook the same dish, different ways, depending on what's going on. Yeah, and I became interested in the idea of, of this recipe that I'd made, I mean, I say 1000 times, who knows.
Lucy Dearlove 43:04
No, it's definitely important. Metaphorically, 1000 times.
Rebecca May Johnson 43:08
Metaphorically, but definitely hundreds and hundreds. And it became..this one recipe that I cooked over and over again, became a kind of founding sort of grammar, almost, for all of my cooking. It gave me a new understanding of cooking, and which then became the basis of all cooking I did after that point. So it then I guess, it was the basis of a language in that sense. And if you think about, you know, all that happens in the hundreds of times that Angela's, you know, mum makes the same dish, the thoughts she has, the encounters, the life that she sustains, like everything that goes on. Like, and again, Angela has, like blown up the takeaway to to an epic narrative of migration and coming of age and identity and and parental love and difficulty and racism and, you know, modern life, you know. And so, in that repetition is so much of life and forms of labour that originate in the domestic, like cooking, like cleaning, like so many of those things, through you know, misogyny and neo- colonialism and racism and so many things, they get made to seem like less in our culture, but they're everything and they're so important.
Angela Hui 45:08
For you with the like book writing process. Yeah. Like, how did you feel about it the entire time? I guess it just in terms of, obviously, a lot of people ask like, oh, is a therapeutic for you? But I guess like, how did you even sta...?
Rebecca May Johnson 45:22
It's really hard to start.Yeah, it's very intense. I put myself under a lot of pressure. As I think you did. I struggled to start, I found it very intense. I had to take rests in between chapters. In fact, I actually got ill in between some chapters with fatigue and had to sort of like literally, like, lie down like a vegetable for like a week.
Angela Hui 45:46
Yeah, same.
Rebecca May Johnson 45:46
Because it doesn't come from nowhere does it, you're not a machine, it's not like, yeah, typing out...It's not like you're just typing stuff out. It is coming from you. Yeah. And I think it's really important to have to do the gestational labour of thinking in between writing.
Lucy Dearlove 46:05
Yeah, that's the writing too, right?
Rebecca May Johnson 46:06
Exactly. You've got to, you've got to have space for your mind, to drift and for ideas to ferment and all that. I did read one essay that really helped me begin writing, which was by a psychoanalyst and poet called Nuar Alsadir. She just published a book of non-fiction called Animal Joy. And she wrote this essay that was published on Lit Hub, about going to clown school. Wow, some kind of, yeah, I think Sacha Baron Cohen went to the same clown school, actually. But what was useful about it, was about it. And they helped me be the sort of the bravery to summon the courage basically, was about you have to be your own type of freaky clown.
Angela Hui 46:51
Like, you kind of, you do!
Rebecca May Johnson 46:53
You know, like, if you, if you try to be the clown, that's imagining the audience and how it wants to be pleased. You'll write this strange, fake book or fake...she she's writing about poetry, like a fake poem, that is like your fantasy of what it is to be competent, rather than something that's deeply truthful. Do you see what I mean? Yeah. So like, she talks about when everyone gets New Yorker fever, and they want to get in the New Yorker. So they write something that they think will get them in the New Yorker. Yeah. Which is like a projection, a projection of what good writing is, yeah, rather than...And then obviously, if you're the clown that's thinking too much about the audience, you can't really clown. You've got to be the freak.
Lucy Dearlove 47:38
So it's about a lack of self consciousness? And self expression?
Rebecca May Johnson 47:42
Yeah, you've got to tap into...why do you want to write a book? You have to tap into the grain of truth, whatever it is that you're trying to write, in a way, not think about the reader. Obviously, you're, you know, writing in language, language is inherently social, but and, you know, as I said, you know, the book is...not in a particularly normal chronology. And it's quite strange in various ways, as we've discussed, with the diagrams and whatever. And now, I think...hopefully writing another book, I'd feel more confident. I had to learn to trust myself. And that was really hard. And actually reading that essay was a really useful thing. It's like, I'm writing, writing the book for me. And I have to be myself and in...do it in the way that I want to. Because that's all I can do. I can't write someone else's book. Yeah. Or some weird projection of what I think people want to read. That isn't really what I want to write. Yeah. Because what is that?
Lucy Dearlove 48:36
I love that..you've got to be your own freaky clown.
Angela Hui 48:39
It's so true, though.
Rebecca May Johnson 48:41
You know, what's distinctively funny or whatever about whichever reader or person it is. Yeah, the things that you..your parents, like, why would you write this for that, it's like well...?
Angela Hui 48:49
Because it's my book. Yeah, from my perspective, how I perceive it. Yeah. And that's okay. You got to be freaky, right! And I think it's fine.
Rebecca May Johnson 48:58
What I found amazing about one of the...one of the many amazing things about your book is how you managed to write such complex situations and such complex emotions about people. There's often like chapters where there'll be the coexistence of trauma and upset with validating the labour and love that went into nurturing your existence with the family unity, dealing with issues of people being arseholes, racism, but...and pointing out the difficulties of being an immigrant family in a rural village. On the other hand, there was real affection for many characters from where you grew up as well. And I think it's, it's such a skill to allow that...the complexity and all those different dynamics to cohabit in the same context, not to sort of cleanse out the complexity. You don't...you manage to tell a story that has so much, so many threads going on like that, and I find that you know, on the one hand, sometimes you're happy, but also you're really tired. But also you like the person from the village, but also some other person from the village is being an arsehole and you love your mother. But also you really want your parents just leave you the fuck alone. You know, this, you know, you managed to capture the real, rich complexity of, of life. And I think that's so hard. And relationships. Classic dickhead behaviour, it's more of a comment than a question, but how was it? What was it like writing about people that you really know?
Angela Hui 50:33
Yeah, that's the thing that really fucked with my head, I guess, cos I was like, because I come from such a small village, people are gonna to read that, people know that, like, I changed a lot of the names for privacy, right. But I still feel they are very, like, you could have if, you know, people who live in my village knows who's who...like will probably be able to point out, a lot of locations have changed as well. And that's what like, freaks me out a little bit is like, these people are gonna read it, I hope they like it. But either way, it was really fun. It was almost like fiction, but it's wasn't fiction, because these are people I knew. When I first started writing the book, I had an insane amount of post-its on my wall. So it looks like you know, when you have when you're trying to like an investigation, you try to solve a crime and you got all these like, ropes coming off everywhere, there's like pictures, that's what my wall looked like I looked like I was trying to solve a murder case.
Rebecca May Johnson 51:29
Well you are, of your own life!
Angela Hui 51:29
Yeah, of my own life. So I had all these postits that I would like chop, and change and move and like the recipes and chapters and the characters. So I had one wall, had one wall for characters actually. And one more for the chapters and what we will cover and one more for recipes. But yeah, the character section, I really wanted to just make sure that the like the core people were there other than my family, but the people that was like reoccurring characters, like the front of house, like other counter staff, and the delivery drivers and regular customers, I think it really helped having the customers because each and every customer that we had was such characters, and they were exactly like that. And I think that's the beauty of coming in a small village where there's not much going on, but it's like, it's the people that really make it. You know, we had this loyal customer, who I love, they're called, like my mum doesn't actually know their name, but we call them the boiled rice Granny, because she would always come in early with her husband, and they'll come a half an hour early, they'll wait by the door for us to open and they'll always have like a small boiled rice and a beef curry. And you know, I'd always let them in sit on this, like the bench before, because it's sometimes really cold sometimes. And I'll just chat to them for a bit. Or, you know, you get the drunken guy who'd always order a steak. And he was really racist and horrible. You know, it's just all these characters that have just stuck in my mind. And they just in a way they're so easy to write about, because they almost write themselves because of the way they are. It's funny people ask you about whether stuff is fictionalised, like sometimes like the truth is better. No, they're all completely real people that I know.
Rebecca May Johnson 53:08
It sounds like you have some good in a way writing devices in place to help you write it as if ...to give you that freedom...
Angela Hui 53:15
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Rebecca May Johnson 53:17
To write it in a way that felt truthful without people losing their right to privacy.
Angela Hui 53:23
Yes, yeah, exactly. Because like privacy was such a big thing. And I was really, really worried about it. Because, you know, I want to make sure everyone were okay with it as well. And obviously tried to change as much names as possible to make sure. I think that's the thing I worried about was just people being able to like track where we lived or like, ... I mean, with the business is, like, you know, we used to be on like Google, so you'd be able to like find us and stuff. But now that is another Chinese family. So yeah, I think privacy was a big thing, and I worried about that.
Rebecca May Johnson 53:54
Maybe you should do some fiction next. It sounds like you've got the skills for plotting.
Angela Hui 53:58
I don't think I do, I don't even know!
Rebecca May Johnson 54:01
I don't know if this is on the cards, but I would really love to watch a TV serialisation or film of your book.
Lucy Dearlove 54:07
Oh my god, same.
Rebecca May Johnson 54:08
Can you imagine!
Lucy Dearlove 54:14
Thanks so much to Rebecca May Johnson and Angela Hui, for allowing me to record this. Their respective books, Small Fires and Takeaway are both out now, and I can't recommend them both highly enough. You can support Lecker on Patreon for three pounds a month, and you get access to a bonus episode every month. This month includes some extra bits from this conversation and the others that I'm releasing this month, specifically around recipes and their role within personal writing, which is something that I'm really interested in and kind of excited about exploring in that. It's going to be a great listen if I do say so myself. So make sure you sign up if you'd like to hear it. Lecker is entirely listener funded. So Patreon subscriptions are really important in me being able to continue to make the podcast. Rebecca was actually a guest on a very early episode of Lecker, way back in 2016. And in the episode she talked about the tomato sauce recipe which she writes about cooking over and over again in Small Fires. I went back and listened to it again myself recently, and it was really cool to hear kind of the early gem of the idea taking shape all of those years ago. I'll link to it in the show notes. If you'd also like to hear it or to listen again. Music is by Blue Dot Sessions as ever. Thanks to Ben McDonald, who is Lecker's resident illustrator. You can see his work on the Lecker Instagram and Twitter @leckerpodcast. There's two more episodes to come this month around the same theme of how writers approached telling personal stories through food. Make sure you subscribe to listen as soon as they're released. And I'll be back in your feeds very soon. Thanks for listening.