Eddie Huang (1)Rezensionen

Kindle why do I need a headline

Couldn't sleep so I opened one of these short Amazon Originals on my phone. Short, but pithy. My mom wouldn't like it (she stopped reading FOTB because "he keeps using bad words" but in this case I think the slang would be the barrier). Eddie's writing is always so genuinely felt, though it's weird coming to this in the post-Julie era (I do remember seeing her on his insta stories for a while though)

The animated gifs were nice. I did download the audio but haven't listened- might try that tomorrow/later today.

On my parents' trip to see my grandfather last month, my mother wanted something to read for the car ride and saw this in my library book pile. She said she couldn't finish/didn't like it because of the swear words and sex (though tbh I can think of maybe 1 chapter where the second is a thing). Even though they're both 2nd gen, Eddie Huang is a Gen Xer and a rotten banana to boot, so I can kinda get the cultural disconnect.

I wasn't familiar with Huang but I did recognize the name Baohaus and the cover/title were intriguing, which is why I checked it out. It reminds me very much of [b:Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly|33313|Kitchen Confidential Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly|Anthony Bourdain|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348988611s/33313.jpg|4219] in terms of I-Don't-Give-A-Fuck tone and writing style. Also because they're both autobiographies with the occasional food bits thrown in. I'm inclined to agree with Huang's assessment that celebrity chefs getting famous marketing 'ethnic' cuisine is nothing short of culinary imperialism, and now I'm really hungry for some bao (even if I am one of those ABCs checking off every Model Minority stereotype I've stumbled into).

I received this ARC from a Goodreads giveaway. I loved getting to read it before it is released. Be prepared to be hungry while reading about all of the amazing and interesting food Eddie eats and cooks during his trip. It was awesome to travel to China with Eddie and his brothers Emery and Evan. The ending is sorta sad. Overall, the book is really great. I highly recommend it.

The ratio of rage to food talk was a surprise - I expected more about "real Taiwanese food" and less about beating people unconscious - yet the change-up was delightful. One hundred percent entertained from first page to last.

4.6/5

This is the first time in a long time that I've read a book in which I literally did not understand some of the sentences, a lot of the slang, and a great deal of the culture -- which makes perfect sense, when I think about it, and only adds to the book's raw style. There were a lot of painful, awful things in this book, and while I didn't really enjoy reading them, I did feel like I learned a lot from hearing Huang's perspective.

I hope the statute of limitations has run out for his various criminal activities, and that his brash successes continue.

I listened to the audiobook version and would highly recommend it!

Taiwanese people are craaaaaaaaaaaazy!

Eddie hang takes us on quite a journey through Chinese cuisine while he plans to cook his way in China.
I have enjoyed Eddies first book and enjoyed it humor and reminiscent childhood and all the funny stories he shares with readers.
This book was similar but left me wanting more. A great story over all and I learned quite a bit about Chinese cooking. But I wanted more and feel like there was something missing.

It was more personal memoir than food memoir. Eddie is young and energetic and impressed with his mastery of the language of the things he loves - rap music, street culture, sports, sneakers... His love for food comes up from time to time, but is not the focus. I was saddened by some of his misogynistic turns of phrase especially after recounting a self-directed education that indicates that he knows better.

Quick, entertaining read, but I did not understand a lot of the slang.

The only memoir i've connected with, at a personal level! And as a child who grew up in a south asian family not too dissimilar from Mr. Huang's own, I related too almost every portion of it.

Short, very modern piece about dating today. Eddie Huang speaks about his dating experience with green-eyed Julie in this story using contemporary expression and humorous slang. The eBook has cute little animations and images to help illustrate the story further. Quick and easy to digest. Very "Gucci".

I only rated it 2 stars because it just wasn't my kind of book. I could and did connect with some things he said about being a minority in America. I wouldn't read again and probably won't go out of my way to recommend this book, but I am glad I read it. There was one quote that really spoke to me, especially considering this exact thing is happening in a neighborhood close to me; a non-latino coming into a predominately latino neighborhood saying she is opening up a better, "healthier", fruteria.

"Will you give credit where it's due or will you allow the media to prop you up as the next Marco Polo taking spices from the Barbarians Beyond the Wall and 'refining' them? The most infuriating thing is the idea that ethnic food isn't already good enough because it goddamn is. We were fine before you came to visit and we'll be fine after. If you like our food, great, but don't come tell me you're gonna clean it up, refine it, or elevate it because it's not necessary or possible. We don't need fucking food missionaries to cleanse our palates. What we need are opportunities outside kitchens and cubicles." (Page 248 of the e-book)

After a couple seasons of the definitely-divorced-from-the-source-material-but-sharing-the-same-name television show (which is great, but not Eddie's story anymore), I binged on Huang's World on Vice to get back to [a:Eddie Huang|1709433|Eddie Huang|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1359702116p2/1709433.jpg]'s voice. I find it's a mix of the vulgar and the cultured, the erudite and the crass that makes him so compelling (that, and the footnotes).

Double Cup Love (so-named from how a bar served its drinks in double styrofoam cups) as pitched to his editor would be just the tale of a Taiwanese-American child of the diaspora returning to the mothership to see if his cooking would pass muster against the Chinese palate. That voyage is still the bulk of the book. Interwoven, though, are thoughts about his relationships with his siblings and with the love of his life, Dena. As he travels to China, he decides to propose, but then wonders about what it really means to be in love (does she love just what she knows, or the whole package including identity?), the future (would his hypothetical hapa kids want to be Chinese or even consider the culture?), and family.

A fairly quick read, and it made me think about the nature of being a descendant of third culture kids (I was never even taught the Taishanese dialect my grandparents and great-grands knew- learning Mandarin would be useful in going for a China visit, but irrelevant to my history), and how food is still one of the ways I'm connected to my ancestors. If you've been watching ABC's version of Fresh Off the Boat, the real Evan & Emery might be a little jarring (apparently Evan becomes a more tempered mini-Eddie and Emery is a bit of a woke hipster, I guess) but such is the nature of adaptations. Can't say I followed all of the hip hop and street references, but that child-of-the-diaspora talk hit me right in the feels.

On my parents' trip to see my grandfather last month, my mother wanted something to read for the car ride and saw this in my library book pile. She said she couldn't finish/didn't like it because of the swear words and sex (though tbh I can think of maybe 1 chapter where the second is a thing). Even though they're both 2nd gen, Eddie Huang is a Gen Xer and a rotten banana to boot, so I can kinda get the cultural disconnect.

I wasn't familiar with Huang but I did recognize the name Baohaus and the cover/title were intriguing, which is why I checked it out. It reminds me very much of [b:Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly|33313|Kitchen Confidential Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly|Anthony Bourdain|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348988611s/33313.jpg|4219] in terms of I-Don't-Give-A-Fuck tone and writing style. Also because they're both autobiographies with the occasional food bits thrown in. I'm inclined to agree with Huang's assessment that celebrity chefs getting famous marketing 'ethnic' cuisine is nothing short of culinary imperialism, and now I'm really hungry for some bao (even if I am one of those ABCs checking off every Model Minority stereotype I've stumbled into).

As someone who reads usually several books a week, this book took me a whopping 20 days to inch through. Given, I was pretty busy so it's not entirely the books fault...but a fair bit of it actually was.

I'm a big fan of Eddie Huang and have enjoyed the stuff he has produced in the past, even Fresh Off The Boat which I'm realizing is maybe not the most accurate portrayal, but a fantastic TV show nonetheless. So with this next statement I'm going to sum up what is both fantastic about Eddie and what made this book so difficult to get through:

Eddie writes EXACTLY how he talks.

If you've seen him in an interview, you'll know that he tosses out pop culture references and slang like candy, and the footnotes in the book are entirely indicative of that. More pages than not have several lines of explanation which to me seems like it would have been better to just work into the text or leave out altogether.

But we all know how picky I am. (You didn't? It's really picky.)

That being said, the premise of this book is top notch. Eddie goes to China as an Asian-American to see if he and his cooking would be as well received. Everything about that concept was awesome and I enjoyed his portrayal of everyone's reactions to his food. What I found harder to swallow was his ramblings on love...yes, generally my favorite part. Will it work? Won't it work? Who knows? Probably not even Eddie is my guess.

What did I think?: Overall, I found the story to be very enjoyable, but the writing a good bit more difficult to follow. I would have to sit down for larger chunks of time to really get into it but when I did, I found that I thoroughly enjoyed the story that Eddie has wanted to share.

Who should read it?: If you're already a fan of Eddie's or if you're wondering about your own cross-culture heritage, or even if you're just looking for something that will make you look at race and food in a different light, I really think you would probably enjoy this one.




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When Eddie complained that gaps in his American cultural understanding hurt his writing and debating I knew just what he meant. Gaps in my understanding of sports personalities, street wear couture (especially sneakers!) hip-hop linguistics, and so on, hurt my potential appreciation of this book. As Eddie explained, he didn't share (their) references so he decided to "use the references that made sense to me and make them catch up". And that pretty much sums up his writing style in this memoir. By the way, Eddie, here's a question for you. When you didn't call poor Lia, who'd waited all day to be your first customer, you said it was because "...we didn't have money for a phone". But then just a bit later, on the same page, you got a call on your cell. Why couldn't you have called her on your cell? Tell the truth, not some bullsh!t story, just tell the truth.

Freaking funny!! You will learn a bit about Chinese food and a lot about Eddie Huang. A very entertaining read.

Good to hear another Chinese voice in the American wild, though there are some differences between the author's and my experiences.

But there are similarities, too. The author was teased and bullied in school, like I was, and the school/teachers were no help, same with my case. So that definitely struck a chord in me.

I enjoyed all the talk about food and cooking, and although I can't cook, I definitely know how to eat.

I don't go crazy for rap and hip-hop, but I do like some of it, and grew up during the same era. I was aware of the feud between Tupac and Biggie, and was pretty shocked when Tupac died.

Our luck with parents were the same, and both my parents believe in corporal punishment, though I never went as far as he did (obviously; was not convicted of anything), and my parents never struck it rich (my parents were solidly middle-class).

Anyway, I understood his identity crisis because I felt and experienced the same thing. But he must have worked a lot harder than I did during college, despite being wild and crazy, 'cause he got into law school and I don't dare show my transcript to anyone.

All in all, good, solid book, and I do recommend it, especially to anyone who wants to understand the Chinese-American experience a little better.

I don't believe Eddie Huang and I would get along in real life. He seems too steeped in drugs, too self-righteous, too violent, way too quick to take offense. And not terribly clear sighted: Orlando, back in the 1990s and now, is not, by any stretch, "the South." Granted maybe some of his uber-Christian private schools had more of a Confederate vibe, but other schools he mentioned, no way, and definitely not neighborhoods like Idylwild either. (As he might phrase it, cot damn, son, sometimes you find what you looking for even when it's not really there.)

That said, I found the book to be worth reading, and not just because he named places and people I knew. Huang has interesting observations about racism, about food, about the value of a liberal education. I see where some of his rage comes from, and I now "get" why a rich Asian suburban kid would identify so strongly with Tupac. The writing varies dramatically from street lingo to rhapsodical food descriptions to academic allusions, and the tale leaps from Washington DC to Orlando to Pittsburgh to NYC without much warning. But one thing this memoir isn't is boring.½

Not very often am I hooked from the first line, but Eddie Huang did just that. This was definitely the most exciting, enticing, and hilarious memoir I've read this year. Eddie recounts his childhood as an American born Chinese and all the cultural differences between him and "normal" Americans. In this country it can be tough to be different; Eddie recounts the experiences bringing "stinky" Chinese food to school, getting in fights, relating to hip hop, and having to deal with stereotypes. Times were tough in high school and college, but he was an exceptional student so even though he got into a lot of trouble, teachers saw potential in him and helped him as much as they could. Although he finished law school he still wasn't happy; not until he opened up his own restaurant in New York did Eddie feel he made it and felt like a true American, living the dream.

Listening to the audiobook was a real treat, as it was narrated by the author himself. Eddie has a hilarious and yet serious narration of his memoir, plus has the ability to start yelling in Chinese when he's describing his mother (hilarious). This is a great book for everyone. There is stuff for foodies, hip hop aficionados, American minorities, sports fans, memoir junkies and more. Truly a great read!

Eddie has an interesting story to tell but I can't really relate to the culture. By that I mean the Hip Hop culture not the Chinese culture. He does recount some interesting misadventures but I didn't find it as humorous as I had expected.
I received my copy free in a Goodreads giveaway.

Pros:
* Food
* Hip Hop
* Basketball

Cons:
* The portion on BaoHaus is very short
* There is a definitive narrative style, which you either love or hate (I loved it).

In some ways this reminds me of [b:Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly|33313|Kitchen Confidential Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly|Anthony Bourdain|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348988611s/33313.jpg|4219], which is funny because the time spent in the actual restaurant is the shortest part of the book. But it's the way that Huang talks about food, even from the first few sentences about soup dumplings you get that he loves food. The brash personality also draws Bourdain comparisons.

This memoir is really about the immigrant experience in America -- food is only a part of that.

I got this through Early Reviewers, and I am a horrible person as I completely forgot to post a review! I very much enjoyed this book. He is a really interesting guy. I liked that he talked to you like a person, that you knew what he was referencing and had a shared history of sorts.