The Seasonal Reading Challenge discussion

This is the discussion thread for the Summer 2021 Group Read Eat a Peach by David Chang. Please post your comments here. This thread is not restricted to those choosing this book for task 20.10, feel free to join in the discussion. Warning- spoilers ahead!

The requirement for task 20.10: You must participate in the book's discussion thread below with at least one post about the contents of the book or your reaction to the book after you have read the book.

Read this earlier this year and loved it. I also recommend this review (https://www.eater.com/22193151/momofu...) by Hannah Selinger, a former Chang employee, for those who choose to read this for the Group Read task.

Zach wrote: "Read this earlier this year and loved it. I also recommend this review (https://www.eater.com/22193151/momofu...) by Hannah Selinger, a former Chang employee, f..."

Fascinating article, Zach - thanks for posting it!

I’m looking forward to reading this! I’m hoping to start mid to late June!

Thanks for the article, Zach 🙂 I’ll read it closer to when I pick this book up

I was so happy when Eat a Peach was chosen for the group reads as it has been sitting on my shelf since I've purchased it last year. It's always a great feeling to actually read books that sit on my shelf.

The thing I really liked about this book was how he touched on racism in the food industry - something that I never thought of. And also the idea of authenticity in "ethnic" food. As a Chinese -Canadian this resonates with me and I am guilty of this. Whenever someone tells me they like "Chinese" food and their version of "Chinese food” consists of egg rolls, in my head I always do a hard eye roll and think “You don’t know what Chinese food is”. But do I know what authentic Chinese food is? What makes me the judge of how authentic a type of food is? Is it because I was born Chinese, so therefore would automatically be the expert on dictating what is and what is not authentic? Why do we feel so strongly in labelling something is “authentic”? I love that this book made me think about food and how it ties so closely to identity.

Dlmrose

This was an interesting read. Chang is open with many of his challenges, including a difficult relationship with his father, his depression and bipolar disorder, and the stresses of starting and maintaining a business. He addresses restaurant culture, Asian-American identity, and dealing with success and fame. But, the book seemed a bit random, and much of his (bad) behavior was explained away.

I love memoirs, especially food memoirs! This was no exception. I love the blend and food, restaurant gossip, mental health and philosophizing. Not sure what part is David Chang and how much I can attribute to Gabe Ulla. Reading this book begat many more entries to my TBR list. I think that qualifies as a success?

One of the things that kept striking me when I was reading this was that I was just not convinced - he kept talking about how he was working so hard on not being toxic, yet then would explode with the same sort of anger that he was supposedly working on. He just kept excusing himself for his behavior.

I also kept thinking about what a difficult time his wife and child have to look forward to. Especially when he said something to the effect that he worried about how he would make sure that his son had enough "friction" in his life, so he wouldn't have it too easy. And that played in to his discussion in the appendix about how all sorts of crazy, awful things would happen in his restaurants, and he would have set these things up to happen, just to challenge his employees to deal with them. At least his employees can quit! His effects on his son will be indelible. And it echoes to how he seems to still be blaming his own parents for all his issues.

I’m not sure how I feel about this book. I expected more of a food/restaurant memoir but a large part of it was his own mental health struggles and the toxicity of the restaurant business. At one point he says that kitchens are where outcasts can find a family and later goes on about the mental abuse, substance abuse, discrimination and racism that is so “normal” about the industry. Sure took the shine off a bunch of celebrity chefs including himself.

Overall, the book was interesting. I had a general knowledge of David Chang before I read the book so I really didn't have too many expectations when I picked the book up. I was really surprised at how open he was about his own mental health struggles. It was interesting how he also touched on the substance abuse problems that sometimes plagued kitchen staff.

Dlmrose - you mentioned about the book being a bit random. I thought it was interesting that in Chapter 8 he had admitted that writing was not a strong suit and was a challenge because he had a tendency to jump around from thought to thought.

Zach - thanks for posting that article. That was a good supplemental read to the book.

I just finished this and would probably give it 3 stars. I had a chef friend who dealt with a lot of issues in the kitchen he was managing: short-staffed, short-tempered and in a pub with alcohol available made for an interesting mix. After all the television programs that feature chefs and their explosive tempers in the kitchen I expected more of the same from Chang. He was certainly dealing with many issues which were a great challenge to him and they did present themselves in the kitchen.

Would I recommend this book to a friend? Probably not.

I nominated this book for the group read, and I'm glad that not only did I enjoy it, but it seems like most other group members did too. I've never eaten at one of Chang's restaurants, but I've seen his Netflix shows, and I was a big Anthony Bourdain fan. I liked the conversations he has about the food and restaurant industry as a whole, along with his personal history and what drives him to find success.

He's definitely underplaying how much his crappy behavior has affected everyone around him, and makes a lot of excuses for it. I've read a few chef memoirs now and they all tend to do the same thing. They list their bad decisions and temper tantrums and explain it away as saying "That's how the industry is. Deal with it." I don't accept that as a reason for being a jerk.

Overall I'm giving this a 4 star rating. I do think it was very well written, even though the author starts off the book by apologizing for how poorly written he thinks the book is.

One of my friends worked as a waitress through most of her working life and she basically hates chefs. She didn't work in any of Chang's restaurants, but she has no kind words for the chefs in any of the restaurants she worked in. Verbal aggression, sexual harassment, temper tantrums, and on and on.

I have to admit that before this book was designated as a group read for one of my Goodreads groups, I had never heard of David Chang and Momofuku. I have read a few other Chef memoirs, so felt I knew what I would get from this book in generally, Of course every chef has his own journey.

The author also talks about how immersing himself in work was a coping mechanism for depression and suicidal thoughts. He also talks about the pros and cons of medication and therapy in dealing with depressive and manic episodes.

There is a lot of raw honesty here, although certainly filtered through his own point of view.
The overall message is that success in the restaurant is achieved through an incredible combination of hard work, perseverance, and luck.

I have always wondered why Chef's needed to be so abrasive, and the appeal of a television show like "Hell's Kitchen" , This book tries to explain some of it, but the toxic environment of a kitchen still baffles me.

Amy B
Hmmmmm....meh.
I'll preface this by saying that I'm a chef. And while I was doing my training, I experienced a lot of the typical bad chef behaviour that was mentioned in the book (most head chef's default to being "yelly" when something goes wrong - along with the casual misogyny.) That's why I chose to avoid working in the kind of high-end, high-pressure restaurant kitchens that Chang and Bourdain work in, in favour of doing industrial product development work. Bigger machines, less yelling.
So, it was a bit baffling to me to get halfway through the book and then find out that he is a yelly chef, giving into his anger so often, to the point of being described by his crew as being a person they hated. From his own description, even after he "dealt with" his anger issues, he strikes me as being the world's worst boss. That doesn't make this a bad book or bad memoir (but I agree with the comment I find it a very fractured read.) But it does mean that I dislike that this behaviour is rewarded by being described in a book that becomes a best seller. Ugh, I just didn't get to the end with any level of trust that he'll move forward as a different, better person. Or that he truly delivered the message that the industry needs to change. So. Not a fan. 3 stars.

I went into this book with hardly any expectations. I loved Anthony Bourdain's book and loved it. So, my only expectation was that it would be as much fun to read as that book. I have to say that the book contained a bit too much swearing for my liking. What I did like about the book were all the stories the author told about his mental illness and how he dealt with certain situations. Overall, an ok book for me but nothing spectacular!

I didn't know much about the restaurant industry going into reading the book, so this was a really interesting read for me. He is clearly very talented and I am impressed by how honest he is about his mental health struggles and his shortcomings in his relationships, inside and outside of the kitchen. But I would be curious to know if he tried to make amends or reach out to any of his staff who his behavior so negatively affected. I was a bit disappointed that he seemed so self-aware of his toxic behavior, but didn't seem able to really fix it.

I had barely heard of David Chang or his restaurants before reading this book in a sort of I knew they existed sort of way. And this book did have me wanting to go check out his LA restaurant for sure. But actually what I found the most interesting about his story for me personally was his straight forward discussion of his bipolar nature. While my ADHD and OCD don't trip me up quite as strongly as his bipolar disorder do for Chef Chang I really resonated with the way he talked about depression. I know my own moods fluctuate in a similar way if not to the extremes that Chef Chang's do. I hate how my ADHD can derail me so quickly and where I think I've made great progress and be stable for a few months and then it'll swing back into depression and the anxiety takes over again derailing most all of the positive work I've managed. While my extremes are not as severe as it sounds like the Chef's are, there were a number of things he spoke about that really resonated with me and actually encouraged me to keep pushing through and fighting every day for that one next step forward. One of the strongest takeaways from the book for me was his description of lobsters, the idea that to stop changing is in itself dying. I loved that idea! It just made me want to keep pushing for that one little inch gained.

I enjoyed this memoir and it certainly sparked my appetite to try new things, both in my life and in the my food.

Nick KY

One of the major topics of Eat a Peach is the battle to fight depression. No matter where it occurs, depression is a great crippler of human individuals. Chang has managed to pick himself up out of expression, and he did so with the help of an amiable personality which shines through in his writing. That depression is such an omnipresent part of the Korean-American community is a revelation to me. But we only hear about success stories from most any oppressed community, I suppose. And usually the success story does not include self-deprecation, I suppose. Strength of character and determination define success in our culture. It is good to see Chang speaking frankly about his battle his own sense of self-worth. Especially since he is such an affable person himself. -- But I agree that his affability probably only extends so far. His family will bear the brunt of the anger episodes he speaks to, and his success in the Asian-American food industry will do little to alleviate that. Still, I have to admire Chang's willingness to expose the horrible effects of depression.

Boston Kate

I'm so torn on this book. I had to wait a few days after finishing it before writing anything down so that I could think about it.

On the one hand, I did find the business aspects interesting. I'm always fascinated to read about jobs that I could never do. (I could never work in a kitchen - I'd be crying in the corner within 20 minutes.) And I expect some amount of bragging about accomplishments in a memoir of this type, and rightfully so, he's earned it.

But at the same time, I found Chang to be almost completely unlikable in this book. The tone he took when discussing his accomplishments and how he ran his businesses seemed a cross between humble brag and cocky. I found myself comparing his storytelling style to Marcus Samuelsson in Yes, Chef, who I came out of the book really liking. I don't doubt that all chef/restaurant owners have at least a bit of dickishness to them, but Chang just didn't sit right with me.

I did like the frankness of his discussion about mental illness. But like others, I thought that while he seemed to acknowledge that his behavior was often wrong, he didn't seem all that apologetic about it.

I had listened to a few interviews with him before, and I did not get this same feeling from him, which is why this book threw me off so much. I listened to the audiobook, which he read himself, so I can't even say that the tone of the book was me misunderstanding it. I definitely want to watch an episode or two of Ugly Delicious to see how I feel about him there.

I still found the book interesting and rated it 3 stars. But it did leave me with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth (no pun intended.)

PAULA S
I had read a few of the first comments in this thread before starting the book, so I knew a bit of what to expect and about Chang being a difficult person. I still really liked the book, and how raw the story is. I do consider Chang to be an unreliable narrator and I would never want to work with him.