Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - Takeaway: Stories from a Childhood Behind the Counter

Takeaway is a memoir that I've heard lots of great things about, so was excited to finally pick it up. It follows Hui's childhood in rural Wales, where she and her family lived and ran a Chinese takeaway.

There was lots in here I found really interesting - I'd had no idea that many Chinese migrants moved to rural areas, and the ways in which they stayed in touch with other members of their community through weekly get-togethers and maintaining some cultural traditions. It also looks at the ways in which the family were and weren't welcomed by the Valleys community they lived in - and Hui's complicated feelings about her Chinese and British identities. There's also some excellent food writing in here, both about how certain dishes were introduced to align with British palettes and also recipes for the meals that the family cooked and ate. Hui is a similar age to me, so I did enjoy some of the contemporary references to the early 00s that I recognised.

I did find that this memoir was often quite repetitive, there were repeated anecdotes and historical information which meant that the reading experience wasn't always that great, maybe the memoir could have been slightly shorter to ensure that the important messages in here didn't get diluted too much.

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a_serpent_with_corners's review against another edition

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This is well-trodden ground: a second-generation immigrant memoir centred on questions of cultural identity and the often painful generational differences between children and their parents, filtered through the lens of food. There's a lot to like about Takeaway, but in the end I can't say I completely took to it.

It's not that it doesn't have anything going for it. The tone is chatty and inviting, the recounting of the day-to-day running of the takeaway was eye-opening, there's a real warmth to the family relationships recounted in the book, and the descriptions of food are suitably mouth-watering. The loving recollections of the taste, texture, and smell of various dishes are by far the best parts of the book proper. There are some moving moments, especially

her troubled relationship with her father and the mixed feelings that came with finally selling the titular takeaway

. The accounts of the racism her family experienced are confronting and painful to read, not least Hui makes it clear how ordinary they were.

However, it's also repetitive and direct to the point of excess. So many times, the book would simply proclaim things to the effect of 'unlike in other families, my family expressed our love not with words but with food' (I don't think this is as uncommon as the book seems to suggest either, but that's beside the point); 'I felt embarrassed about being Chinese, I just wanted to be normal'; 'I wasn't Chinese enough for people in Hong Kong and I wasn't British enough for people in Wales'; and so on. The issue isn't that these ideas aren't interesting or sincerely-felt, nor is it just a matter of 'telling rather than showing' (I'd argue that memoirs in particular can tolerate direct telling quite well), but more that they were always phrased in the simplest way, then restated repeatedly, often in very similar terms to the first time without bringing in anything new to justify the repetition. I wondered if it might have benefitted from a more ruthless editorial hand.

Of course, that this kind of story has been told before isn't itself an issue -it's an important and compelling story. However, the level of reflection on these experiences was sometimes a bit shallow and I'm not sure distinguishes itself in a crowded field that contains many other excellent books. Takeaway features some great supplementary material - not only the generously-provided recipies, but the suggestions for further reading in the appendix. Unfortunately, this can end up doing Takeaway something of a disservice (though it does a great service to the reader) - bringing up books like Charles Yu's Interior Chinatown or Nicole Chung's All You Can Ever Know unfortunately in my case had the effect of making me wish I was reading something more like those books, which I found more interestingly-written and to have explored their central ideas in greater depth and with more flair.

In short - a quick, lively read. Not unenjoyable, but it left me wanting more.

I'll spare myself the shame of trotting out something like "digestable but not altogether nourishing".

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bethancy's review against another edition

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4.5

I devoured this book. I loved it. I grew up in a small village in Wales and one of my best friends' parents owned the local Chinese takeaway. Really enjoyed this memoir, though upsetting at times to read about the discrimination and abuse the Hui family had to go through. Each chapter has a recipe at the end, what a bonus!

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madamelacy's review against another edition

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3.75

Really interesting and thought-provoking. I have a renewed admiration for people who run takeaways. Such a hard life!

The book was a bit repetitive in places, but generally well-written.

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kirstym25's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

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serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

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4.0

Takeaway is a memoir shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize. The author grew up in her immigrant parents’ Chinese takeaway shop. Many of the issues and themes explored were familiar to me but the overt and sometimes violent racism was confronting. The realities of working in a family business as a child, and the role food played in the family beyond sustenance and a source of income made this book stand out. I listened but don’t think audio’s the best format since it makes it hard to follow the recipes which are included at the end of each chapter. Honest and eye-opening.

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nialiversuch's review against another edition

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3.5

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