“My parents are born in 1962, the tail end of the Cultural Revolution and the Great Chinese Famine.”
Parents who lived through a famine never stop stockpiling, and they end up buying a $3,000 industrial freezer for the backyard harvest. Costco sells abundance by the pallet, and for this family it is the most American place there is. Food is how they say what they can’t say out loud. It is an essay about trauma disguised as one about a warehouse store.