A Korean adoptee herself, Betsy Self-Elijah graciously offered to read and review Kim Sunée’s memoir Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love and the Search for Home.   Sunée appeared at the First Person Festival in November.

While reading Korean American adoptee Kim Sunée’s memoir Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love and the Search for Home, I crave the chap chae, kimchi, and sushi sold by the Korean supermarket on Cheltenham Avenue. At home, I wind the cellophane noodles with bits of beef around my fork. As I pile on the pickled, spicy cabbage with each bite of sushi, I remember that my white adoptive mother told me that my South Korean orphanage served me rice and kimchi, and I wonder how a toddler’s throat can swallow the burning red pepper flakes, green onions, garlic, and ginger.

As Sunée narrates her life story, from an orphanage in South Korea to her childhood with her Caucasian adoptive family in New Orleans to her relationships with men in Stockholm, Provence, and French Guiana, I relate as a fellow Korean American adoptee. Like her, I was born in Korea in the early 1970s, abandoned by my birth family, and flown to the U.S. to be adopted by a Caucasian family. Like her, I’ve felt disconnected from my adoptive parents, and I’ve shared romances with men who did not look like I do. Where I’ve explored my journey of identity mainly through writing, Sunée digs in deeply through food.

Sunée sprinkles recipes throughout Trail of Crumbs. Beyond simple lists of ingredients and instructions, she gives us the taste of personal memories, whether boiling crawfish with her grandfather in Louisiana, stirring pasta with her roommate in Paris, or plucking ripe peaches directly from trees with her lover in the south of France. There is something lyrical to Sunée’s writing voice as she sifts English, Korean, Swedish, and French together, whether discussing a recipe for kimchi, “a hard round of knäckebröd,” or “a large wedge of fromage d’abondance”.

One doesn’t need to be a Korean American adoptee or even a gastronome to savor Sunée’s story. What draws me in is the humanness of her experience, her hunger for belonging, for love, for satisfaction. She takes her time exploring these issues and doesn’t give us easy answers. We are there with her all along the way at her moments of discovery, disappointment and trying again.

With an MFA in Creative Writing: Memoir and Creative Nonfiction, freelance writer Betsy Self Elijah serves as nonfiction editor for Quay, a literary journal, and has taught personal narrative writing workshops in schools and with organizations throughout Philadelphia.