The Blue Bowl

Historically, the preparation, sharing, and consuming of cuisine has played an important role in the transmission of cultural traditions across generations. In many works of literature, authors have represented how opportunities for positive interactions arise from the shared activity of food consumption, which contributes to a strengthened sense of belonging and revitalized familial and communal relationships. The consumption of food, itself, can be savored for its different flavors, but this activity is also meaningful because of what it signifies for the people involved. As both a material and discursive embodiment of particular skills, knowledge, and cultural values, cuisine can be a means for people to affirm their collective heritage in the present or to express their aspirations for a shared future together.

Following on her previous book The Tray of Togetherness, Flo Leung’s gently told story The Blue Bowl continues to explore the importance of cuisine in relation to family dynamics, cultural connections, and communal cohesion. However, in contrast to her previous story’s collective representation of a family and community that celebrate the Lunar New Year together, The Blue Bowl’s narrative trajectory revolves more specifically around a single character named Max who grapples with his sense of self-identity. Narrated from Max’s perspective, the story’s exploration of his experiences also allows Leung to explore his family’s dynamics.

The book’s opening scene transports readers right into the middle of the action during which Max comes home and savours with anticipation about what his father is preparing for their supper. The presence of food becomes a locus for delving into Max’s thoughts about the types of foods that he likes. When he helps to prepare the table for supper, Max reflects on the meanings of the familiar blue bowls that he sets out with the other dishes and utensils. Through his musings, readers learn more about Max’s enjoyment of different dishes as well as the uncertainty that he experiences around this which subtly represents his broader struggles around how he can reconcile different cultural traditions and figure out where he belongs.

Max knows that the blue bowls are significant as they are used to serve certain foods. When they are used, it means that they will be serving some of his favourite Cantonese dishes—such as congee, fruit-filled cakes, gai lan with oyster sauce, and steamed rice—or that they will be having afternoon tea with his aunts and eating fruit-filled cakes. Although Max likes his family’s Cantonese meals, he also enjoys other foods, such as fries, tacos, and pizza. With his upcoming birthday, he was hoping that they would go to the Taste of Rome, but it turned out that they would be celebrating at his grandparents’ home instead with his cousins and other relatives. However, the dinner turns out to be something that he does not expect.

The culminating dinner scene conveys a harmonious rendition of an extended family that proudly sustains its Chinese cultural heritage while, at the same time, embracing other cultural influences in the present. For Max’s birthday dinner, his parents use the familiar blue bowls that his grandparents brought from Hong Kong when they immigrated to Canada, thereby signifying an ongoing linkage with their cultural past. However, Max is surprised when he notices both Chinese and Italian dishes at the table since he did not expect to see them both at the same time. The spread includes his favourite Cantonese dishes as well as Italian foods, such as garlic bread and Caesar salad, capped off with a mango cake for dessert. From this, Max realizes that there does not have to be a distinct separation between when foods from different cultural traditions are served and that he does not have to choose one over the other, but rather that it is okay for him to like both. Liking Italian dishes does not make him any less Chinese; similarly, to be Chinese does not mean that he should prefer Chinese cuisine over others.

Throughout The Blue Bowl, Leung’s colourful illustrations dramatize the closeness of Max’s family and highlight important moments in the story. Leung’s careful inclusion of small details also enhances her illustrations’ realism for readers. For example, one two-page spread shows Max and his family preparing food for their dinner in the kitchen, with the backdrop of their adjacent living room where her sister is playing with some toy blocks. In the living room, the family cat is taking a nap on a couch, and there is also a bookshelf with some books, a plant, toy car, and other containers. In the kitchen, a variety of foods and other ingredients are spread out on the counter, including bok choy, a can of tomato paste, cheese, and cilantro. Similarly, when Max’s relatives come for his birthday celebration, the illustrated scene includes various details that evoke the coziness of Max’s home. There are a few potted plants in vases with decorative designs, what appears to be a Chinese watercolour painting hanging on a wall, as well as a turquoise rug.

Some of Leung’s illustrations also subtly affirm Canada’s culturally diverse heritage as a normalized and positive reality. For example, when Max goes out with his family, the accompanying illustration also depicts a black man and white woman walking together, presumably as friends. In the illustrations of Max buying fries from a food truck, eating tacos at the market, and sitting with his classmates at a lunch table, these also depict kids from a variety of cultural backgrounds. These inclusive representations are important for young readers because they will recognize themselves in the pictures and feel that they are part of the environment in which the story takes place.

The Blue Bowl may remind people of Richard Ho’s Two New Years, which represents a harmonious family that embraces its Jewish and Chinese origins when it celebrates the coming new year. Although more children’s stories are featuring people from hybrid cultural backgrounds, Leung’s book is a welcome addition as it reveals how many children nowadays are navigating different cultural influences from their family, peers, and community in order to understand and situate their sense of self-identity. Teachers could readily approach this book from that vantage point and ask students to think about their family’s background, how they identify themselves culturally, and what things are meaningful (and in what ways) in shaping their understandings of themselves. Drawing inspiration from the book’s focus on cuisine, students could also consider the importance of cuisine to their families, the history and cultural influences of foods that they eat, as well as their personal preferences in relation to these foods.

The Blue Bowl could be included in any library’s collection of children’s literature that is looking to increase its coverage of culturally diverse books or, more specifically, stories with a focus on Asian and hybrid cultural heritages. Although the publisher’s website indicates that this book would be suitable for those from four to seven years of age, readers outside of that age range could also enjoy this book as it deals with themes that people of all ages could relate to. The book does include some words that younger readers may find more challenging, but its illustrations, as well as assistance from adults, will help to facilitate their comprehension.

Flo Leung is a food-loving illustrator who is also part of the takeout kitchen/studio Noble House. Before delving into writing and art, she went to cooking school and subsequently worked in and around the culinary industry for several years where she was a pastry cook, food stylist, and television producer. Currently based in Toronto, Leung published a collection of Cantonese-Canadian recipes entitled Family Meals: Comfort Food Cooking, Vol. 1 in 2022. More details about the inspiration behind her book are available in a recent interview with her publisher. Her official website is https://www.floleung.com/.