‘If only my Cantonese parents weren’t so allergic to the word love…’

‘A wonderfully heart-warming memoir from the bottom of the stomach. ’ – Xiaolu Guo

‘A real and delightful surprise, full of smart thought and deft words – and also very funny.’ – Ella Risbridger

'Poetic, delicious and full of moments of grace and beauty.’ – Nikesh Shukla

What is the most unsayable thing you have ever wanted to say to your parents? For newly single food journalist Candice Chung, there’s been one thing on her mind lately: ‘If anything happens, I love you.’ Simple. Reasonable. If only her estranged Cantonese parents weren't so allergic to the word ‘love’.

Still, she’s determined to tackle what's left unsaid. To find a way to unscramble what her family has been trying to tell each other all along – not in Cantonese or English, but with food.

As Candice dives into the rituals of family dining, and her parents offer to join her at restaurants she’s due to review, she begins to unravel how a decade of silence and distance have shaped their relationship. Through shared meals and culinary adventures – from steaming hotpots to pasta at uncomfortably romantic trattorias – they begin to confront the unspoken. And to unpick what it means to show care when you come from a culture where saying ‘I love you’ isn't the norm.

Set against the backdrop of a burgeoning new relationship, grasped-at date nights mid-pandemic and an uncertain future across seas, Candice reflects on migration, solitude and intimacy.

How can we rebuild closeness when we’ve drifted apart?

Can food fill the gaps where words fail?

For anyone who has ever found their loved ones’ emotional worlds unreachable, Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You is packed with heart, humour and those bright-hearted moments around a dinner table that bring us together.

The next word-of-mouth obsession for readers of Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, Butter by Asako Yuzuki and I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee.

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‘Tenderly shows how food steps up to provide the emotional support, comfort, and safety that humans need, when words cannot.’ – Hetty Lui McKinnon

‘Will undo anyone whose love language is food.’ – Tara Wigley, co-author of Ottolenghi SIMPLE