Aimee Nezhukumatathil's delectable second essay collection, Bite by Bite, gathers a cornucopia of foods laden with delight, nostalgia, worry, homesickness, and above all, nourishment in its many forms. In 40 brief "appetizing origin stories of care and sustenance," Nezhukumatathil explores the ways food binds people together, as well as the complex, delicious alchemy of taste and memory.
Nezhukumatathil (World of Wonders) begins with rambutans, a spiky, unruly fruit that brings to mind her Indian grandmother, with whom she shares a mane of dark, untamable hair. In Nezhukumatathil's hands, food is much more than just food: it opens up space to ponder questions of beauty, colonization, self-acceptance, and family. These themes run through the entire collection, as when Nezhukumatathil creates "a self-portrait" of her Indian Filipina heritage and the resulting arguments over which country grows the sweetest mangoes, or when she recalls her first taste of jackfruit at her grandparents' home in Kerala. She recounts her husband's journey through a snowstorm to buy pineapple for their eldest son, and the taste of both community and grape pie she discovered at a grape festival in western New York. Her essays delve, too, into the complexities of food and history, shared and personal: the vanilla bean's ties to enslavement, the use of "coconut" as a racial slur, the moment in an isolated cherry orchard when she feared, briefly, for her life. But mostly, Nezhukumatathil's handpicked feast resembles her beloved halo-halo: a "richness of delights" made all the sweeter for its variety, with something to savor in every bite. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams