Tastes Like Seeing God

The Bear meets Real Americans in this coming-of-age story that’ll make you hungry—for food, for life, for forging your own path

In the days following her brother’s death, Jessie Wong is adrift and angry at Tommy, her rebellious older brother and a world-traveling chef, for dying; at her parents for their silence and rigidity; and at the confines of her conservative Christian Chinese upbringing. Then Jessie finds a list in Tommy’s handwriting listing the five meals that he claimed “taste like seeing God.” Was his phrasing blasphemy, or a nod to some hidden belief? Is it pure chance that the list came to her, or is this fate offering her the chance to know her brother in a new way?

Breaking from her parents for the first time, Jessie decides to take up her brother’s unexpected challenge. With a one-way ticket, she embarks on a whirlwind pilgrimage to taste the five foods on the list. From the gritty bars of New York City to a three-Michelin-starred restaurant on a tiny German island in the North Sea, from the art world of Paris to the markets of Dakar, Jessie meets the people who loved and inspired her brother, getting to know the sibling she lost and the life he’d built. As Jessie begins to realize how much more of the world is out there, perhaps a future she’d never dared to envision for herself is now within her grasp.

Flavored with illegal French delicacies and famed Senegalese dishes, Tastes Like Seeing God explores the transcendent power of food, the transformative nature of grief, and how we can learn to choose a life on our own terms. With emotional truth and surprising humor, Tastes Like Seeing God is a poignant exploration of life’s sorrows and its sublime joys.