Slow Noodles

A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes

De: Chantha Nguon

Narrado por: Kim Green, Clara Kim

A haunting and beautiful memoir from a Cambodian refugee who lost her country and her family during Pol Pot's genocide in the 1970s but who finds hope by reclaiming the recipes she tasted in her mother's kitchen.

Take a well-fed nine-year-old with a big family and a fancy education. Fold in 2 revolutions, 2 civil wars, and one wholesale extermination. Subtract a reliable source of food, life savings, and family members, until all are gone. Shave down childhood dreams for approximately two decades, until only subsistence remains.

In Slow Noodles, Chantha Nguon recounts her life as a Cambodia refugee who lost everything and everyone—her house, her country, her parents, her siblings, her friends—everything but the memories of her mother’s kitchen, the tastes and aromas of the foods her mother made before the dictator Pol Pot tore her country apart in the 1970s, killing millions of her compatriots. Nguon’s irrepressible spirit and determination come through in this emotional and poignant but also lyrical and magical memoir that includes over 20 recipes for Khmer dishes like chicken lime soup, banh sung noodles, pâté de foie, curries, spring rolls, and stir-fries. For Nguon, recreating these dishes becomes an act of resistance, of reclaiming her place in the world, of upholding the values the Khmer Rouge sought to destroy, and of honoring the memory of her beloved mother.

From her idyllic early years in Battambang to hiding as a young girl in Phnom Penh as the country purges ethnic Vietnamese like Nguon and her family, from her escape to Saigon to the deaths of mother and sister there, from the poverty and devastation she experiences in a war-ravaged Vietnam to her decision to flee the country. We follow Chantha on a harrowing river crossing into Thailand—part of the exodus that gave rise to the name “boat people”—and her decades in a refugee camp there, until finally, denied passage to the West, she returns to a forever changed Cambodia. Nguon survives by cooking in a brothel, serving drinks in a nightclub, making and selling street food, becoming a suture-nurse treating refugees abused by Thai authorities, and weaving silk. Through it all, Nguon relies on her mother’s “slow noodles” approach to healing and to cooking, one that prioritizes time and care over expediency. Haunting and evocative, Slow Noodles is a testament to the power of culinary heritage to spark the rebirth of a young woman’s hopes for a beautiful life.

“I’ve never read a book that made me weep, wince, laugh out loud, and rejoice like Slow Noodles. In Chantha Nguon’s harrowing, wise, and fiercely feminist memoir, cooking is a language—of love, remembrance, and rebellion—and stories are nourishment."—Maggie Smith, New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2024 Chantha Nguon (P)2024 Algonquin Books

Reseñas de la Crítica

"I’ve never read a book that made me weep, wince, laugh out loud, and rejoice like Slow Noodles. In Chantha Nguon’s harrowing, wise, and fiercely feminist memoir, cooking is a language—of love, remembrance, and rebellion—and stories are nourishment."—Maggie Smith, New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful

"A heart-lifting story of radiant compassion, Slow Noodles reminds us of a life-affirming truth: Even when all seems lost, who we most essentially are, like what we most unerringly love, somehow remains. We have never needed this beautiful book more.”—Margaret Renkl, author of Late Migrations

"With hauntingly vivid and often surprisingly beautiful language and imagery, Slow Noodles tells an astonishing story of life—persistent, miraculous life—in a harrowing era. I’ll never forget it.”—Mary Laura Philpott, author of Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives

Moving story along a threat of delicious food

I liked that it broadens my perspective on how people live in Cambodia. Honest story

Interesting and moving

Very informative and heartfelt. Learned a lot about a piece of history that was unfamiliar to me.

Pulls back the veil on the history of Cambodia

The bravery it took to tell this story is reason enough to listen, and the author’s daughter reads her mother’s story so beautifully. You will learn a great deal about history, survival, determination and the power that can exist in one woman.

Incredible story

Deeply moving story of one woman's journey from a privileged childhood through terrible losses and unimaginable hardships. She survives and prospers through helping others in her native Cambodia. This is beautifully read by the author's daughter which makes it all the more moving and poignant.

Remarkable story

Unexpected recipes to try. Now I know what it takes to create my favorite noodles.

Hypnotic

The reader was wonderful and drew my attention with her soft voice. She and the book are superb!

Important and Beautiful

This is an important and beautiful story that deserves to be told, read, and listened to.

A Haunting Memoir

It's embarrassing to say, but I had no idea how long Cambodia continued to be so directly impacted by the Vietnam War after its conclusion. This is a thorough and haunting memoir of one woman's experience from her childhood of privilege before the war, through all the extreme hardships, and how she came out the other side of it all. I found the book to be well paced until the last few chapters, which felt rushed and short-changed to me. While the tie to food is beautiful and the recipes are such a deep reflection of experiences at the corresponding time, I found them a bit distracting since there were so many of them. I love that the epilogue is by the author's daughter.

Hauntingly beautiful, epic journey of resilience and human kindness

Chantha Nguon and Kim Green masterfully weave this epic journey through the towns, cities, villages, jungles and refugee camps of Southeast Asia. From her origins as a pampered little girl in middle-class Cambodia, we experience all her fears and trials, seasoned through the condiments and flavors of her mother's recipes. It's a very difficult journey, the heroine's journey, but it is so worth it in the end. Beautifully, evocatively, and very movingly brought to life by the voice of Chantha's daughter, Clara, as the narrator.

The resilience, sadness and kindness

The resilience, sadness and kindness of these Cambodian / Vietnamese people kept me sobbing and both broke my hart and opened it. I think of all the refugees all over this world that could use a little kindness and a helping hand. An amazing story of how much one can help with so little land great recipes too! I keep thinking of the landmine chicken