Author Boris Fishman, whose family emigrated from the Soviet Union to the U.S., narrates this buoyant, revealing, and socially conscious family memoir, which includes many, many recipes. His resonant baritone is easy to enjoy; one notices his kind and relatable tone and judicious pace. The impact of the Holocaust is never far from the core of his articulate writing. On the other hand, on audio the recipes come off as lists. Throughout, Fishman’s narration style remains consistent whether he’s describing the funniest or the most awful of family circumstances or experiences. Lucid and controlled in both the writing and narration, this work makes for appetite-whetting listening. Happily, a PDF of the recipes is conveniently provided. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Enthusiastic meals…are the language of this book, the waypoints and transitions, the narrative beats and instigative sparks that drive the storytelling. The meals are fantastic…Many of the best parts of this book will be familiar to readers of Fishman's work; indeed, Savage Feast feels at times like a key to his novel A Replacement Life…But here there's a more straightforward desire for connection and a much less postmodern quest to find someone to eat with. "Two people eating in famished, silent synchrony—what more did you need?"

10/22/2018
This delightful, recipe-filled memoir from novelist Fishman (A Replacement Life) follows his Jewish family—and their richly-described dinner tables—across three generations, from 1945 Belarus to 2017 Brooklyn. Beginning in postwar Minsk, where the Holocaust left “an extended family of fewer than a dozen,” the author punctuates the story of his relatives’ emigration experience with their meals, from the braised sardines in his grandmother’s “Nazi cast-iron pot,” to the “peeled hard-boiled egg with a snowcap of mayonnaise” he relished as a child on the train out of the Soviet Union in 1988. In New York, Fishman grew into a romantically troubled writer struggling in his 30s to cope with “trauma-derived mother-hunger” inherited from his forebears and to hold onto his “past without being consumed by its poison.” Fishman found an unlikely guide in his grandfather’s Ukrainian home aide, whose cooking lessons delivered him from a tenderly rendered episode of clinical depression. There’s a large web of characters and anecdotes, but Fishman grounds the narrative with his witty prose and well-translated family recipes—like the Soviet Wings his family cooked in Italy while immigrating to America, and kasha varnishkes, perfect “for Passover if you’re an atheist.” Fishman’s sprawling immigrant saga masterfully evokes a family that survives, united by food. Agent: Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary. (Feb.)

A tightly written page-turner about the author’s childhood in Minsk, his extended family and their odyssey from Belarus to New York (via Vienna and Rome in the 1980s) as well as his efforts to conquer his own demons. While reading it, I was frequently tempted to head to the kitchen and fry some onions, the step that starts many of the Eastern European recipes in his book.” — Florence Fabricant, New York Times, “Front Burner”

“Terrifically nuanced and multidimensional…I’ve been reading every food memoir available, including those by Anthony Bourdain, Gabrielle Hamilton, Ruth Reichl, Michael Pollan, Samin Nosrat, Michael Twitty, and now Boris Fishman. His is the most focused and most multilayered of these wonderful books.”   — Panthea Reid, Philadelphia Inquirer

“As Fishman suggests with this profusion of stories, all feasts are savage, in the sense that cuisine, like culture, is ultimately wild, feral, untamed.” — Paste

“Fishman’s writing is brisk and vivid, and despite generations’ worth of trauma the family suffered, from pervasive anti-Semitism to the brutalities of World War II, his memoir is often funny... This book departs from other memoirs: Most chapters end with detailed recipes, adding a lovely, homey dimension.” — BookPage

“This beautifully written memoir is a wonderful story about family, love, and connecting with your roots.” — Library Journal

“This rich, memorable exploration of immigrant identity, culture clash and Soviet cuisine will linger long after the book has been closed or the last of the dishes within have been served.” — Shelf Talker

“If you aren’t hungry when you start reading this book, you will be by the time you’ve finished.” — Bookish

If you aren’t hungry when you start reading this book, you will be by the time you’ve finished.

Fishman’s writing is brisk and vivid, and despite generations’ worth of trauma the family suffered, from pervasive anti-Semitism to the brutalities of World War II, his memoir is often funny... This book departs from other memoirs: Most chapters end with detailed recipes, adding a lovely, homey dimension.

As Fishman suggests with this profusion of stories, all feasts are savage, in the sense that cuisine, like culture, is ultimately wild, feral, untamed.

A tightly written page-turner about the author’s childhood in Minsk, his extended family and their odyssey from Belarus to New York (via Vienna and Rome in the 1980s) as well as his efforts to conquer his own demons. While reading it, I was frequently tempted to head to the kitchen and fry some onions, the step that starts many of the Eastern European recipes in his book.

This rich, memorable exploration of immigrant identity, culture clash and Soviet cuisine will linger long after the book has been closed or the last of the dishes within have been served.

Terrifically nuanced and multidimensional…I’ve been reading every food memoir available, including those by Anthony Bourdain, Gabrielle Hamilton, Ruth Reichl, Michael Pollan, Samin Nosrat, Michael Twitty, and now Boris Fishman. His is the most focused and most multilayered of these wonderful books.”  

As Fishman suggests with this profusion of stories, all feasts are savage, in the sense that cuisine, like culture, is ultimately wild, feral, untamed.

Rabelaisian in appetite but Chekhovian in its spare and keen psychological detail, this marvelous memoir of family, exile, breakup, and one prodigious cook named Oksana sets a new standard for literary gastronomic writing. Even the recipes—who wouldn’t salivate over garlicky peppers marinated in buckwheat honey?—are as surprising and fresh as Fishman’s prose.

Given his literary gifts, his intelligence, his keen sense of humor, and his fascinating immigrant family history, it would have been a crime if Boris Fishman had not written this book. Like all good recipes, the ones in these pages will give you cravings, but the story itself could not be more satisfying. A superb memoir—artful, ambitious, deeply soulful, often hilarious—by one of our cleverest and most original writers.”
 

I find myself at home in the buoyant brouhaha of Boris Fishman’s family. And for all I know, he and I may be distant cousins. In prose as visceral and tightly coiled as the best poetry, Savage Feast assures me we are bound by the part of the self that is healed, coaxed, chastened and captivated by even the memory of a good meal.

Vibrant…It’s easy to feel at home in Fishman’s writing; it’s warm, reflective and frequently funny…Even more than a story of hunger, this is a story of love. Love of family and companionship. Love of romance and lore. Love of garlic, fish and the feeling of finally learning to identify and satisfy the simple but crucial loves for which everyone hungers.

Mapped in recipes, a savage landscape of Jewish hunger…Boris Fishman brings the fraught role of food in Jewish culture to evocative life in his new memoir…Suspended between his Soviet childhood — Fishman was nine when his family left Minsk — and an American life from which he feels fundamentally distant, the home Fishman eventually finds is in food…Really, what it comes down to, is a hunger for something like truth. A true identity. A true relationship. A true understanding of his family’s history, and the ways it must and must not form his life.

Mr. Fishman’s story—as a refugee, a seeker and an insatiable eater—is inherently compelling. But the book’s brilliance lies in the author’s self-awareness and honest appraisal of his, and his family’s, shortcomings. By the last third of the book it is nearly impossible not to be rooting for the author. Mr. Fishman’s struggles and triumphs are uniquely his own, but his most primal desires are universal: to be seen and understood by loved ones, and to eat like a czar.

Enthusiastic meals are the language of [this] book, the waypoints and transitions, the narrative beats and instigative sparks that drive the storytelling. The meals are fantastic….Many of the best parts of this book will be familiar to readers of Fishman’s work..— in other words, telling stories about your family. But here there’s a more straightforward desire for connection and a much less post-modern quest to find someone to eat with.

…a work of reminiscence and celebration that should appeal to a wide range of readers. If you like books about affectionate, colorful families, imagine Irving Howe’s World of Our Fathers mixed with Frank B. Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey’s Cheaper by the Dozen.  If you’re a fan of food memoirs, you’ll want to shelve it near M.F.K. Fisher’s The Art of Eating and A.J. Liebling’s Between Meals …The accounts of raucous, argument-filled holiday dinners are hilariously familiar… [A] smorgasbord of humor, pathos and emotional insight. I very much enjoyed Savage Feast, and so will you.

Mapped in recipes, a savage landscape of Jewish hunger…Boris Fishman brings the fraught role of food in Jewish culture to evocative life in his new memoir…Suspended between his Soviet childhood — Fishman was nine when his family left Minsk — and an American life from which he feels fundamentally distant, the home Fishman eventually finds is in food…Really, what it comes down to, is a hunger for something like truth. A true identity. A true relationship. A true understanding of his family’s history, and the ways it must and must not form his life.

02/01/2019

Fishman (A Replacement Life) has written a funny yet moving memoir of his life as an immigrant from Minsk, Belarus, much of which revolves around the connections between food and family. Fishman discusses his early years living in Soviet Minsk with his parents and Holocaust survivor grandparents, and how they survived before their life-changing move to the United States. Included are many recipes from Oksana, the home aide who cares for Fishman's grandfather. These dishes were an integral part of their lives in Brooklyn. Another significant aspect of the narrative deals with the relationships Fishman had with several women throughout his life; not only his mother and grandmothers but also several girlfriends who helped shape his views and what he wanted out of life. Fishman was especially close with his grandfather and relies on his wisdom and humor to help him during his personal issues. VERDICT This beautifully written memoir is a wonderful story about family, love, and connecting with your roots. Recommended to readers who enjoyed Michael W. Twitty's The Cooking Gene.—Holly Skir, Broward Cty. Lib., FL

Author Boris Fishman, whose family emigrated from the Soviet Union to the U.S., narrates this buoyant, revealing, and socially conscious family memoir, which includes many, many recipes. His resonant baritone is easy to enjoy; one notices his kind and relatable tone and judicious pace. The impact of the Holocaust is never far from the core of his articulate writing. On the other hand, on audio the recipes come off as lists. Throughout, Fishman’s narration style remains consistent whether he’s describing the funniest or the most awful of family circumstances or experiences. Lucid and controlled in both the writing and narration, this work makes for appetite-whetting listening. Happily, a PDF of the recipes is conveniently provided. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

★ 2018-10-28

Food from the old country nourishes the spirits of refugees.

At the age of 9, journalist and novelist Fishman (Creative Writing/Princeton Univ.; Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo, 2016, etc.) immigrated to the United States from Soviet Belarus with his parents and grandparents via Vienna and Rome. In each city, they underwent an examination of documents, health, and suitability to enter the U.S. The process was protracted and tense, and some families were turned away. But after making an emotional case for their oppression, they were approved, and on Thanksgiving Day, 1988, they landed in New York to begin the challenging transformation of becoming Americans. Central to Fishman's insightful, absorbing memoir is hunger: "the trauma-derived mother-hunger that won't give you a moment to wonder if you're really hungry underneath all that worry." The trauma of cultural loss, shared by many immigrants, was assuaged by his grandfather's home health aide, whose recipes for potato latkes, stuffed cabbage, braised rabbit, liver pie, and scores more make the memoir a succulent treat. Besides hunger, the family harbored an overwhelming fear of risk and deep-seated pessimism. When Fishman's mother went to a therapist, distraught at her son's reckless decision to move to Mexico, the therapist, bemused, asked, "what if it goes well?" His mother was stunned: "Something as obvious as things turning out okay even if someone split from the pack had never occurred to her." Although their innate sense of doom made his family seem "medieval and maimed," he, too, was dogged by a pervasive feeling of sorrow and disorientation that led him to bruising romantic relationships and emerged as full-blown depression. "I used to think," he writes, "that if I could just persuade them that risk brought reward, that things turned out okay now and then, I could be myself without confusing or hurting them. But their losses and shocks reached so far," he concedes, "I couldn't save them." With great effort (and therapy and antidepressants), he managed to save himself.

A graceful memoir recounting a family's stories with candor and sensitivity.