I love to cook, and so a friend lent me her copy of this book, which is the biography of the author’s great grandmother. While, yes, this books is a straight-forward biography — that means it’s not dramatized and obviously contains certain periods of boredom or inactivity — it was amazingly fascinating to me. I’m a history buff in addition to being a cook. I actually did my thesis on British history. And so when Lilla showed me a part of British history I’d never experienced before, well, I can only hope my life turns out as interesting to someone else as hers was to me.

Lilla was an identical twin, a girl who was born in China as the daughter of Brits engaged in trade in China. In those days, Westerners were allowed in the port towns and trade cities, basically left to their own Western ways of polo games, high tea, starched linen and Victorian morals, rolling in money with the bustling import/export business in the Orient. She’s a child of the empire, not quite belonging in China, but definitely not welcomed in London, where she was seen as a bit of a hick.

The great thing is that Lilla loves to cook. It’s her defining characteristic throughout her life. Therefore it’s no real surprise that when she was imprisoned by the Japanese for almost two years during WWII — all foreigners in Japanese-occupied China were so imprisoned — she keeps herself sane by writing out a cook book of her favorite recipes and household hints. No, I’m not going to go try any of her dishes, which are a little vague to this modern cook’s eyes and sometimes a little gross. (Ox tails, brains, etc.) But I’m not going to get over the image of her writing out a chapter of desserts during a time she was starved, forced to eat horse meat, rolled coal with mud to heat her hut and took turns cleaning out the latrines.

I really don’t understand why some people are unwilling to try reading biographies, especially when I stumble across little gems like this. Had I been born a century ago, on a different continent, with an identical twin, I think this woman could have been me and I learned a great deal from her true story of empire, food, family and belonging. (I don’t think I could take the twin part, though. I’m too opinionated sometimes to coexist with myself.)

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars – Book club selection