Does Being Fat Make You A Good Chef?
A Sunday morning ritual at Casa Bix involves a cup of coffee, the New York Times and a pug in my lap and Food Network on the TV, where Esteban and I provide a running MST3K commentary on Sandra Lee and Rachael Ray. We love Ina the most, mostly because unlike several TV chefs, her recipes actually taste good whereas recipes from Rachael Ray and Alton Brown are hit or miss. And I freely admit that I have some fat girl bias, but I am pretty sure that my preference for Ina has to do with her recipes turning out well in my own kitchen versus any contention that the only good cook is a fat cook. Check out the fat bias in this editorial from Matt Kass at the Chicago Tribune:
Cooks require heft, to prove they eat their own creations….It’s not just the skinny women chefs. I don’t trust skinny male chefs either, especially if they’re dressed like teenage vampires in “Twilight” with their skinny black jeans and tight T-shirts and ample hair product. When I think of a chef I can trust, I think of cooks with gravitas, some weight on their bones, women who clearly are no strangers to the knife and fork.
Before you start thinking about this being a win for fat acceptance, think again: I don’t care if it’s disregarding Beth Ditto on the runway because she’s over size 12 or disregarding Padma Lakshmi because she’s under size 12, it’s still sizism no matter how you slice it. Sure, fats are getting the positive assumption that they are more competent when it comes to food, but it’s just as damaging as assuming an athlete is stupid or a gay person is good with fashion. And the assumption that you’re such a good chef that you can’t stop eating your own creations is insulting at best, not to mention the bad reasoning that fat OR thin chefs are only eating their own food. Certainly, we can point to some anecdotal evidence to support the stereotype of a great chef at a higher BMI but we can just as easily point out situations to the opposite. For every Mario Batali, there’s a Grant Achatz who is amazing in the kitchen (trust me, the man’s food is perfection)!
What do you guys think? Do you distrust thin chefs? The comments are dying for some juicy morsels!
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Filed under: Beth Ditto, Fatism, TV, Weetabix
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I’m more turned off my chefs who can’t stop with the side comments about whatever food being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ based on calories/fat or whatever. Sure, if I’m watching a show to find healthy cuisine, I’m up for that, but if I’m watching Rachel Ray I’m looking for fast meals or if I’m watching Alton Brown, I’m looking to learn something about the history/process of the food. (This is theoretical since I don’t watch either of them, though I weep when I have to turn off AB because I used to love him before I learned about his fatphobic opinions.) If I’m getting an unexpected schooling on my health and, by extension, how fatty mcfatterton something might make me ew ick, I’m all ‘no thank you.’
That said, Sunny Anderson Food Network chefs. I also love Rick Bayless, and his gravitas certainly doesn’t come from his girth.
I don’t think anything of a chef’s food, whether they are fat or thin. I think that thin chefs can make great chefs. And when a chef is of average size, I kind of admire them more because it shows that you can eat fattening foods in moderation and still not be overweight.
I am large, and I absolutely love the taste of my own cooked meals, but I still trust skinny chefs. I think the bias against them probably comes from the assumption that a skinny chef must not cook well enough to tempt them into eating it, which I can understand; every night in the kitchen I’m salivating as much as everyone else in the house, and I can’t wait to dig in (and often don’t – a cook needs to taste what she’s making, right?) I understand, but I don’t condone this bias.
What I heard in a cooking class that I took is that all the best chefs are drunkards and alcoholics. Given that beer is quite near and dear to my heart I actually like this maxim and am working my hardest to make sure it’s true. :)
Really? That’s funny about the best cooks being alcoholics- because I’ve worked with a lot and-
Wanna know how to tell if the chef drinks too much at a restaurant you’re dining at? Oversalted food. Yes.
I don’t care what the chef looks like, but I do care if they go on and on about how you can eat this and not get fat, or they’ll do so much exercise, or they’ll just have a teeeeny tiny piece, or they won’t eat any because they’ll give it to their friends. And it’s usually the thin-to-average chefs saying this.
I trust chefs based on how their recipes turn out in my kitchen, not based on their weight.
That said, I do believe that fitting the “societal ideal” of physical attractiveness may be a benefit to celebrity chefs or other cooks in the limelight. So when I see a fat chef, I wonder whether she or he had to work twice as hard and be twice as good to get a prime TV spot, as so often happens in celebrity situations where thin privilege is at work.
My brother’s a chef and I did notice a direct coloration between his weight, and his job. My always rail thin brother suddenly became a bit chunky (not fat, but he certainly gained some weight). And it’s a very common occurrence with chefs, because they have to eat pretty much constantly to make sure things are right. (Also weird hours, and often eating at least one restaurant meal a day play into it).
Now, understand that chef pudge doesn’t mean fat. If someone has a high metabolism, it could be a couple of pounds that no one would really notice, or even none at all. But I’m thinking that this is the phenomena that leads to the belief that fat chefs are better cooks than skinny chefs.
Its funny, I never really thought about this. I guess my ‘trust’ of a particular chef is based on two criteria: Can I see myself going to the trouble of making that and does it sound good to me? I can watch Alton Brown make something and if it appeals to me I can almost memorize the process by seeing it once. I like Ina because she’s so calm. All food is comfort food; its comforting to watch her cook.
This guy seems a bit of an ass (whenever someone calls people who complain a “special interest group” my hackles raise), but I do like how he talks about his favorite women chefs. Particularly this:
What’s more, Ina always says incredibly sensuous things like, “Jeffrey just loves cheese.” Or, she’ll taste her sauce, get that smoky glint in her eye, and purr, “I can’t wait till Frank gets here,” and you just know it’s true.
I don’t suffer from chef size bias. I just made an Ina cake for my birthday. And maybe you and I tried different things but I have never been let down by a Rachael Ray recipe so I’m always surprised when someone says that. She’s actually even gotten me to try foods and combinations I never would have if not for the feeling of, “Well she’s never steered me wrong before.”
I’ll agree that the most important criterion in a chef is his food (and I’ll add that my favorite non-TV chef, a vegan, is one of the thinnest people I know.) But in celebrity chefs…call me shallow, but there’s at least one TV chef (naming no names) who’s SO conventionally beautiful, and SO extremely thin, while making SUCH fat- and sugar-heavy food, that all my FA practice in not judging other people’s bodies goes right out the window. When this chef, who’s also unabashedly selling sex, pours in a pint of heavy cream and starts purring over it in a way that makes my spouse’s eyes glaze over, I must admit that I am dubious; “surely,” I think, “she can’t be eating her own food very often or in any kind of quantity.” I’ve even wondered if she maybe throws it up after the show, because it is so rare for anyone to conform so succesfully to the contradictory standards of that purring food-loving sensuality on the one hand and conventional super-thin mainstream beauty on the other. She’s a walking embodiment of impossibly conflicted expectations, even if she actually eats vodka sauce three times a day and loves every minute of it. She’s like the huge cake next to the diet advice on the cover of Ladies’ Home Journal.
Anway, all things considered (including a great chicken marsala recipe that adapts beautifully to seitan marsala), I’ll take Tyler Florence. And it doesn’t hurt his credibility (or anything else) with me that he has gained a few pounds over the years.
I’m a 40 y/o size 0 who’s ex husband used to refer to me as a ‘human garbage disposal’. Different people have different bodies, and just like you can’t judge a fat person’s eating habits by looking at them, you cannot judge a thin person’s eating habits on looks either.
I am a fat chef :P I actually found that I lost about 30kg when I started back in the kitchen. I don’t know the whole range of experiences of course, but working around food all day tends to make one… not very hungry. Also, with the constant tasting, it’s more like eating a small snack every couple of hours.
I don’t trust a fat or thin chef any more or less based on their physical appearance, I trust them on their attitude (Jamie Oliver has worn thin on me in recent years) and the reliability of thier recipes.
Sizism is sizism. Simple as that. Most of the people who I know from personal experience are passionate about their cooking tend to have more heft, but that is by no means a requirement or should serve as proof that they cook good food that they are more than willing to eat. I know people who are starved-skinny in appearance who could (one almost did) easily eat me out of house and home. Body size does not always correlate with food consumption, no matter how logical that assumption may seem.
And for my last two cents: Alton Brown is my personal favorite on Food Network.
I realize that the plural of anecdote isn’t data, but I have a dear friend who’s very slender and both cooks extremely well and eats quite a bit (and doesn’t excercise).
We FA advocates, of all people, should know that sometimes people’s bodies just do what they want to do with regards to weight; a certain size doesn’t prove certain behaviors. In my own experience, good cooks come in all sizes, from very thin to very fat.
Looks don’t really register with me when judging a chef, it’s all about the results.
My soon-to-be sister-in-law is a fantastic cook and apprentice chef, is over 40 and slim as a reed. I doubt her weight will change much, or at least to the point where anyone else would notice.
My belief is that anytime anyone makes some kind of sweeping generalization about someone’s abilities based on their appearance, well that’s just blatant discrimination.
Sorry to barge in, but Marie Claire magazine today asked this quesion: “Do you really think people feel uncomfortable when they see overweight people making out on television?”
I am shocked and disgusted that this article made it to print. (Full Article) http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/dating-blog/overweight-couples-on-television
Their lack of decorum and respect for people’s feelings has prompted me to post a reply. http://toywithme.com/accepting-your-body/marie-claire-fatties/
I think Giada is scary skinny and has a lollipop head. Like a lot of anorexics, she is obsessed with preparing food for other people.
I’ve always hated the idea that you can’t trust a skinny cook (because they, presumably, don’t eat their own food) because it seemed so counter to the idea of fat acceptance. It sort of implies that fat people are fat because they eat a lot and while I’m sure in some cases that’s true its obviously not the case for everyone and just plays into the idea that fat people sit around stuffing their face and that skinny people starve themselves. When in reality there are also plenty of people who don’t eat much, or eat just the right amount (for them) and are fat and people who eat a lot and are thin. I cook a lot and my dad was the person who taught me to cook. We’re both good cooks, we both eat a lot, and we both cook a lot and then eat what we make. My dad is fat and I am not anywhere close, despite having a similar appetite (and actually, now that my dad is on a diet I eat more than he does). Additionally, I don’t really like the assumption that you have to eat all your food for you to be considered a good cook. I have a sensitive stomach and since my senior year of high school I’ve had to avoid dairy products. But I love baking, especially baking things that traditionally are made with dairy. So while I have adapted and learned how to make a delicious tofu cheesecake there are some thing that I will bake even though they have dairy because I enjoy the process of making them, and then I’ll feed that stuff to my friends and family. Obviously tasting your food can help but if you get good feedback you can make things you don’t eat and still have them taste delicious.
This is definitely not a fair assumption. I worked as a chef for 4 years and actually lost weight when I started. The reason for this is that kitchen work is hard physical labor. You are constantly on your feet and those stockpots are heavy. Yes, you are constantly eating, but you are also constantly working out. A fat chef is usually the executive chef, ordering from vendors and delegating tasks and not actually working on the line (not that he couldn’t throw down if he had to). Actually, all of the best chefs I worked with were thin, so…
Fatness should not be a factor in who is a better cook.
I hired a “thin” chef to cater my wedding.
Impressive tasting. Horrible food for the wedding banquet.
I will never, ever trust a thin chef with food again. Though it’s horribly discriminative to say they just don’t understand individual food cultures, the quality of ingredients, technique, and the value of the finest ingredients, I’m going to say it anyway.
Also, stay miles and miles away from any “chef” who purports to prepare “healthy” food. He or she is a shill for a fat industry corporation, or some misguided health food store junky. Save your money for someone who knows that the hell they are doing in a kitchen if you want to eat well.