There would be very few people in this world for whom their relationship to food, and subsequently, their relationship to their body, was not filled with nuance. Food is the thing that nourishes us, that keeps those same bodies strong and healthy.
Likewise, food comforts us and brings us together. We have all gathered around a dinner table and felt happy. For many of us, food is also the thing that connects us to our family and heritage, and cooking is an activity, a necessity, that can spark both memory and joy.
Yet we also obsess over our food: we decry junk food, hide away guilty pleasures, or boast about clean eating and wellness. We have all stood naked in the mirror, poking and prodding at various parts of ourselves with curiosity, with disdain, with distaste. This dissonance and the causality of such between these complex dynamics is explored with tremendous grace and sensitivity by Melbourne-based writer Sam van Zweden in her memoir, Eating with my Mouth Open.
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It was hard to write this review without slipping into much more personal writing. So eloquently does Sam van Zweden draw a line between the relationship to self and our relationships to food that her writing will spark memories and reflections for a reader in droves.
My own clearest memories of food from my childhood relate to my mother, elbow deep in flour, teaching me how to make apple crumble, or my father, making up different stir-fries on Sunday nights. Van Zweden’s detailing of the relationship dynamics of her own family, the memories of her upbringing both complex and comforting that food sparks, her journey of mental health and acceptance, and the sociocultural history of food as it relates to culture and identity is poignant and elegantly done.
‘Eating with my Mouth Open is a sensitive, nuanced and deeply moving exploration of what it means to live with a body.’
To explore the philosophy of food as it relates to culture and identity through the lens of childhood and family lends Eating with my Mouth Open an intimacy and warmth that is deeply resonant and meaningful.
Both a profound personal memoir and a deep dive into both the cultures and social dynamics surrounding food and the relationship of food to the body and to the self, Eating with my Mouth Open is a sensitive, nuanced and deeply moving exploration of what it means to live with a body.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5 ★★★★
Eating with my Mouth Open by Sam van Zweden
Publisher: NewSouth Books
ISBN: 9781742236988
Format: Paperback
Categories: Memoir, Australian
Pages: 240
Release Date: February 2021
RRP: $29.99
