AustLit

(Introduction)

''To eat is to build upon our collective story. We use food to say, again and again, who we are.'

'Eating with My Mouth Open is food writing like you've never seen before: honest, bold, and exceptionally tasty. Sam van Zweden's personal and cultural exploration of food, memory, and hunger revels in body positivity, dissects wellness culture and all its flaws, and shares the joys of being part of a family of chefs.

'Celebrating food and all the bodies it nurtures, Eating with My Mouth Open considers the true meaning of nourishment within the broken food system we live in. Not holding back from difficult conversations about mental illness, weight, and wellbeing, Sam van Zweden advocates for body politics that are empowering, productive, and meaningful.' (Publication summary)

'In her 2015 Sydney Review of Books article ‘What the essayist spills’, Maria Tumarkin draws a clear distinction between ‘confessor’ and ‘essayist’. The first is a writer who spills everything for an audience primed to receive and ‘learn’ from it. The latter sees their material as an entry to wider discussions; ‘smashing the bottom from underneath the author’s experiences’ and steering them into a place where the experiences are simply given space to breathe in an approach driven by curiosity.'  (Introduction)

'There’s an ache that comes from somewhere in my middle-lower back and which feels emotional at its root. Like whatever it is that keeps me standing and breathing and conscious is giving up. I live with depression, and I know the feeling of low mood descending, and this ache is not quite it. The ache isn’t only mine, either; it goes beyond my edges and is shared by people around me. It feels widespread, not just within my local community, but perhaps distributed generationally.'  (Introduction)