The Serpent's Table: Good food with cups full of honesty and feeling

In Vietnamese culture, Pauline Nguyen says, the things that are hardest to say can sometimes be expressed with food.

The Serpent's Table: Good food with cups full of honesty and feeling Rw-Serpentstable-wd-20140127142427226520-620x349

The Serpent's Table: Good food with cups full of honesty and feeling Rw-Serpentstable-wd-20140127142427226520-620x349

As she relates the intensely personal and still raw story of her relationship with her father, the bitterness she feels is incorporated into – and offset by – her canh kho qua, a “reconciliation soup” of bitter melon rings sweetened with chicken broth, ground pork and shallots.

Calmly preparing it in front of us, Nguyen – author and co-owner of the acclaimed Red Lantern restaurant in Surry Hills – describes her family's risk-all journey by boat from postwar Vietnam and her father's struggles to keep the family economically afloat. She tells of his rages and anger; using her kitchen knife to dramatic effect, she describes the beatings he would hand out for poor test results.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/theatre/the-serpents-table-good-food-with-cups-full-of-honesty-and-feeling-20140127-31i9y.html#ixzz2rgIW3lEd

The Serpent's Table: Good food with cups full of honesty and feeling

The Serpent's Table: Good food with cups full of honesty and feeling

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