Description:
Eat a Peach - David Chang, Gabe Ulla - 2020
By: David Chang, Gabe Ulla
Narrated by: David Chang
Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 09-08-20
Language: English
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs, Professionals & Academics
Publisher: Random House Audio
Format: mp3 64/48 stereo
From the chef behind Momofuku and star of Netflix’s Ugly Delicious - an intimate account of the making of a chef, the story of the modern restaurant world that he helped shape, and how he discovered that success can be much harder to understand than failure.
“David puts words to so many of the things we all feel, sharing generously of his own journey so we can all benefit in the process.” (Chrissy Teigen)
In 2004, Momofuku Noodle Bar opened in a tiny, stark space in Manhattan’s East Village. Its young chef-owner, David Chang, worked the line, serving ramen and pork buns to a mix of fellow restaurant cooks and confused diners whose idea of ramen was instant noodles in Styrofoam cups. It would have been impossible to know it at the time - and certainly Chang would have bet against himself - but he, who had failed at almost every endeavor in his life, was about to become one of the most influential chefs of his generation, driven by the question, “What if the underground could become the mainstream?”
Chang grew up the youngest son of a deeply religious Korean American family in Virginia. Graduating college aimless and depressed, he fled the States for Japan, hoping to find some sense of belonging. While teaching English in a backwater town, he experienced the highs of his first full-blown manic episode and began to think that the cooking and sharing of food could give him both purpose and agency in his life.
Full of grace, candor, grit, and humor, Eat a Peach chronicles Chang’s switchback path. He lays bare his mistakes and wonders about his extraordinary luck as he recounts the improbable series of events that led him to the top of his profession. He wrestles with his lifelong feelings of otherness and inadequacy, explores the mental illness that almost killed him, and finds hope in the shared value of deliciousness. Along the way, Chang gives us a penetrating look at restaurant life, in which he balances his deep love for the kitchen with unflinching honesty about the industry’s history of brutishness and its uncertain future.
©2020 David Chang and Gabe Ulla (P)2020 Random House Audio
Editor's Pick
Momofuku chef David Chang serves up another winner
As someone who dined out voraciously in early aughts New York and overindexes on Asian comfort foods in my own cooking, I am massively grateful for David Chang, who has directly improved the way I eat more than any other chef on the planet. Everything Chang does—from his restaurant empire Momofuku to his work in TV, media, and podcasting—brims with his signature vision and authenticity, so I have been waiting for his memoir with the ardor of, say, someone trying to score a table at Momofuku Ko in 2008. And while Eat a Peach is a foodie’s dream—the mirin-soaked backstory of a bootstrap noodle bar that succeeded far beyond its founder’s wildest dreams—the main course is how deep Chang is willing to dig into his struggles with anger and depression (he is bipolar), racism, and the pressure to meet his parents’ high expectations—all in his own calm, easy-to-listen-to voice. —Kat J., Audible Editor
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