Book Launch: Food Was Her Country by Marusya Bociurkiw

How can a god-fearing Catholic, immigrant mother and her godless, bohemian daughter possibly find common ground? Come find out when Marusya Bociurkiw’s “Food Was Her Country” launches at Massy Books!

Food Was Her Country is the story of a mother, her queer daughter and their tempestuous culinary relationship. From accounts of 1970s’ macrobiotic potlucks to a dangerous mother-daughter road trip in search of lunch, this book is funny, dark and tender in turn.

Marusya Bociurkiw’s “Comfort Food for Breakups: The Memoir of a Hungry Girl” was a food writing phenomenon: the world’s first LGBTQ food memoir. With this long-awaited follow-up, “Food Was Her Country” draws upon a queer archive of art and activism, stories from her popular food blog, Recipes for Trouble, as well as social histories of food, evoking new beginnings and fresh ways of tasting the world.

“An un-put-down-able memoir! Daughter Marusya and mother Vera carry food while traversing ‘spaces large as continents’ between them—to find love, grief and love again.”
—Cynthia Flood, author of What Can You Do

“Emblematic of a specific Canadian generation: a child of immigrants finds feminism and lesbian life pulling her far from her family’s expectations and demands. Yet, in this moving memoir, Marusya Bociurkiw reveals how both mother and daughter fought for a relationship on new terms, where both could retain their autonomy without controlling the other’s life. The author’s discoveries are illuminating for the reader, and articulate possibilities of understanding with individuation, rarely imagined or realized.”
—Sarah Schulman, author of Conflict Is Not Abuse.