Description

DATE OF RELEASE: 14 MAY 2026

‘Touching, absorbing and unflinching… shows you how to stomach life’s shit, celebrate the ugly, and keep going' Angela Hui

Eat bitter is a Chinese proverb meaning ‘endure hardship to taste sweetness.’ For Lydia Pang, it embodies the struggles of her Hakka ancestors, a persecuted Chinese ethnic group whose ingenuity shaped a food culture rooted in fermenting and foraging. Pang reimagines eating bitter as a philosophy to confront her own challenges: burning out, testing her marriage, navigating fertility struggles and caring for a parent. Through eight recipes, she shares food as memory and medicine: the silly egg noodles her father cooked when her sister was ill, the bone broth she boiled in New York while homesick and courgettes grown in rural Wales as a gesture of reconnection.

Eat Bitter is a beautiful and fearless exploration of food and feelings – with bite – for fans of Crying in H Mart, Butter and Midnight Chicken.


Hardback, Publication: 14 May 2026, Vintage
ISBN: 9781784746308

Extent: 304 pages 

Product form
  • David's Bookshop

Eat Bitter: A Story About Guts and Food by Lydia Pang

    DATE OF RELEASE: 14 MAY 2026 ‘Touching, absorbing and unflinching… shows you how to stomach life’s shit, celebrate the ugly,... Read more

    £18.99 £17.09

      • Guaranteed secure & safe checkout.

        shop pay

      Description

      DATE OF RELEASE: 14 MAY 2026

      ‘Touching, absorbing and unflinching… shows you how to stomach life’s shit, celebrate the ugly, and keep going' Angela Hui

      Eat bitter is a Chinese proverb meaning ‘endure hardship to taste sweetness.’ For Lydia Pang, it embodies the struggles of her Hakka ancestors, a persecuted Chinese ethnic group whose ingenuity shaped a food culture rooted in fermenting and foraging. Pang reimagines eating bitter as a philosophy to confront her own challenges: burning out, testing her marriage, navigating fertility struggles and caring for a parent. Through eight recipes, she shares food as memory and medicine: the silly egg noodles her father cooked when her sister was ill, the bone broth she boiled in New York while homesick and courgettes grown in rural Wales as a gesture of reconnection.

      Eat Bitter is a beautiful and fearless exploration of food and feelings – with bite – for fans of Crying in H Mart, Butter and Midnight Chicken.


      Hardback, Publication: 14 May 2026, Vintage
      ISBN: 9781784746308

      Extent: 304 pages 

      Login

      Forgot your password?

      Don't have an account yet?
      Create account