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Eat Bitter

byLydia Pang

A Story About Guts and Food

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Eat bitter is a Chinese proverb meaning ‘endure hardship to taste sweetness.’ For Lydia Pang, it embodies the struggles of her Hakka ancestors, a persecuted Chinese ethnic group whose ingenuity shaped a food culture rooted in fermenting and foraging.

Pang reimagines eating bitter as a philosophy to confront her own challenges: burning out, testing her marriage, navigating fertility struggles and caring for a parent. Through eight recipes, she shares food as memory and medicine: the silly egg noodles her father cooked when her sister was ill, the bone broth she boiled in New York while homesick and courgettes grown in rural Wales as a gesture of reconnection.

Eat Bitter is a beautiful and fearless exploration of food and feelings – with bite – for fans of Crying in H Mart, Butter and Midnight Chicken.

‘Touching, absorbing and unflinching… shows you how to stomach life’s shit, celebrate the ugly, and keep going' Angela Hui

© Lydia Pang 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

About Lydia Pang

Lydia Pang (She/Her) is a Frankenstein, misfit Creative Director with a decade of experience in brand building. Lydia is the Co-Founder of MØRNING, a London based, creative strategy and cultural foresight studio. She judged Clio Awards, D&AD and was a Cannes Lions delegate. She’s worked in media, advertising agencies and brands in New York and Portland, always in hybrid creative roles honing her passion for digital storytelling and trend mapping. She has given talks on ethical commissioning and the future of branding at Instagram and NYTimes, and written articles for Refinery29, Riposte, Vogue, Elle, and Dazed.
Details
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • ISBN: 9781529970500
  • Price: £14.00
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