Eat To Live, Or Live To Eat?
it would be inaccurate—
to say I never really thought that much about food as a teenager, because I am the person whose mother had to hide bags of crisps, boxes of tangerines and any amount of milk chocolate for fear that I would demolish it before breakfast.
Even today my family is still shocked when I emerge from the garage with a piece of Toblerone that dad hid in the freezer at Christmas, as if I don’t know all their hiding spots. Amateurs.
So yes, I constantly thought about food as a teenager. I craved the tender morsels of Korean barbecue chicken that Mum would make once a week; I looked forward to scrambled eggs sausages on the weekend; I savoured bowls of rice steeped in hot garlic seaweed broth. But I rarely thought about the effect that food had on my body.
The only time that thought consciously crossed my mind was when I was 14 years old on a lacrosse tour (yeah… lacrosse) in Canada, and I heard a teammate say “I love Cat’s figure because she’s not skinny.” I was probably too proud to ask whether it was a good or a bad thing and likely continued eating, brushing it off as a compliment. Perhaps that comment embedded itself in my psyche in the years to come. The fact that I would consider it an insult is proof of the flawed social expectations of beauty, particularly imposed on women.
When I got to university, I became even more hungry for experience. And it seems, for food. I definitely took advantage of being in catered halls, acquiring the playful nickname Tubs (as someone who routinely vacuumed all plates in the dining hall, subconsciously carb loading for the wine-fuelled nights ahead, no doubt).
Still, despite the fact that I’d gained weight in my first year, I didn’t notice until summer rolled around and a picture surfaced on Facebook (remember when we used Facebook?) of me standing in a group of my girlfriends. My face—which had always been round and earned me the affectionate nickname moon face by my brother—appeared to have turned into the sun. Not one to exercise, I don’t remember trying too hard to fix it, but a two month trip to South East Asia later that summer (yes, total middle-class cliche) found me rapidly losing weight due to the heat, getting a chunk of money stolen on a Thai bus and a virus that wiped me out for two days.
When I came back to university for second year, rocking a deep tan and a face that was more crescent that full moon, I was flooded with compliments. And that was all it took to kickstart an eating disorder, one which I only deemed as ‘casual’ for much of my early twenties.
Before I thought about how food affected how I looked and how people perceived me, it was a source of pleasure and joy. In the years after, I saw food as a fickle friend. I became obsessive, going from raw diets to binge eating, constantly running over what I had eaten in my head at every moment. I was caught in between the mentality of ‘eat to live’ or ‘live to eat’, believing that food was a gateway to both pleasure and sin.
It took most of my twenties to reconcile how I felt about food and my body. These days, I’ve channelled that obsession into a love of cooking (and restaurants, obviously). I don’t eat ‘clean’ and I don’t prescribe to diets that cut out vital food groups (like butter). I try to be mindful about what I eat. I see every bite as a morsel of joy, which is why I’m so meticulous about taste and flavour that suits me.
When I’m hungry, I’m ravenous, and sometimes that gets me into trouble. As I wolf down food and forget what my limits of fullness are, my mind begins to spiral and I return to those punishing thoughts of eating too much. Disordered eating doesn’t leave you. You just have to translate it into something manageable and positive.
Honestly, I’ve never been one to describe much as joyful, but that’s what food should be all about. It’s a bit cringe, but I've had two glasses of rosé so here were are.
Here’s to joyful eating,
Cat x
confit tomatoes and basic salad.
I feel like I’m running out of steam with these quote unquote recipes, but here’s a little bowl of goodness that I turn to on multiple days a week.
I’ll be real, it’s a basic salad. It's just chickpeas, avocado, feta and little gem lettuce. Dressed with some confit tomatoes—which basically means slow roasting cherry toms on the vine in about an inch of olive oil with a crushed garlic clove, a generous (as ever) pinch of salt, some crushed red chilli flakes and a big twist of pepper for about 25 minutes, then dressing it with 1tbsp honey, 1½ tbsp of white wine vinegar and a few chopped anchovy fillets (yes this is basically my oven dressing from week 2, just with some extra oil).
Toss the chickpeas, sliced avocado, crumbled feta and halved little gem with a vinaigrette (wholegrain mustard, honey, lemon, apple cider vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper – amounts suited to your cute taste buds) and then spoon over the warm tomatoes on top. Enjoy with the sun on your face, a glass of pale rose in hand, and preferably watching (or re-watching in my case) every season of Insecure.
food stories.
– As a child who grew up eating delicious tofu, I totally agree with Yewande Komolafe who argues for tofu as the main event in The New York Times
- Blending two loves of mine: language and food. Writer Jen Doll on food descriptions and status anxiety for her piece, Menu Speak, on The Atlantic
– Behind a paywall, but I enjoyed restaurant critic Marina O'Loughlin on rediscovering the joy of home cooking during lockdown for The Times.
a few leftovers.
– Alisha Sommer's riff on Edna Lewis's cobbler is my dessert dream (add a scoop of vanilla ice cream ofc)
– Sky McAlpine's roast chicken salad looks bomb and I'm here for it
– Kewl, yes, chicken piccante via Munchies
– This video tells you why you're mashing your potatoes wrong
– Pan con tomate is a deep summer lunch mood
– Alyse Whitney argues that breakfast fried rice > cereal (strongly agree)
– Keep meaning to make spinach and ricotta gnudi
if you like what I'm putting down?
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