Title: Comfort Food for Breakups: The Memoir of a Hungry Girl Author: Marusya Bociurkiw Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press Publish Date: 2007 Pages: 171 Genres:: Memoir, Autobiography, Lesbian, Non-Fiction Reviewer: Chris R. Morgan

Rating:

Love for food—especially given this nation's reputation—is not an altogether unique trait. Yet as there are many ways to love people, with trust, dependence, tenderness and all that good stuff, so it goes with food, at least when it comes to Marusya Bociurkiw. Hence, her love for food and the memoir that details such love are both unique. Comfort Food for Breakups is a clever concoction. In the way she mixes the ingredients of a given dish, she mixes elements of autobiography, travel, cookbook and sexual confessional into her text. Despite living a life of colorful variety, it seems that her center is the kitchen and mastication. 

Bociurkiw, though born in Canada, was of Eastern European heritage. This rings true throughout the book. In the same way that Greek heritage infects most, if not all of David Sedaris' early life, the same goes for Bociurkiw with her Ukrainian roots. She reveals to the reader many customs and recipes that have been passed down to her. Her parents were sociable and intellectual, but scarred by war and such brutalities. She does not get along with her mother and yet they are bridged by a love for all things culinary. This is the predominant theme: It all comes back to food. Her father's time spent in a concentration camp as a political prisoner prevents her from making soup that's too watery.

Aside from her born heritage, she also delves into her experiences as a lesbian and, as you'd probably expect if you've gotten this far, how food relates to and affects it. Bociurkiw’s lesbianism covered in the book ranges from her understanding of her culture and womanhood to recalling her breakups and, as the title suggests, the food that got her through the bad times. Much of the book is interspersed with recipes that vary from Eastern European delights to chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. 

There's much to take from the book, mostly from the variety of foods you've probably never had, unless you share her culture. The stories themselves are essentially vignettes that offer instances of her life that are, at the same time, straightforward, detailed and more than a little heavy-handed, falling into that genre of dramatic/quirky/ethnic upbringing narrative. However, it's the food angle that gives the book its definition and allows the reader to take something away from it more tangible than one would expect from the printed autobiographical page.