Mama Lieu's Kitchen

Book excerpt: A cookbook that is partly historical, partly memoir, Mama Lieu's Kitchen looks at the food that was central to life and culture in Taiwan. The book journeys through Ruth Lieu's childhood in Taipei during World War II, her teenage years in the postwar 1950s, and continues to the 1960s in the U.S. Ruth vividly describes the food she and her family ate during World War II-- from the bottle of cooked flour with sugar each child carried to tide them over while huddled in bomb shelters to lean postwar years of monotonous lunches of boiled rice with salted, pickled white turnip and egg, which her mother packed for her six brothers and sisters. Heartwarming stories of family, friends, and neighbors helping each during the tough times weave through the narrative. This book is dedicated to Ruth's three children, Tina, Clara, and Derek, who still call her from far- flung places asking, "Mama, how do you make...?"