Traveling Abroad Is When I Get to Eat Without Shame
At home food is fraught — but when I wander through foreign countries, I experience the guilt-free feasting that feeds my soul.
Illustration by Lucila Perini
Editor’s note: This piece is part of a collection of stories on fat travel, curated by guest editor, author and activist Virgie Tovar. It’s the first in a series at the intersection of travel and inclusion, published by Airbnb Magazine.
Facebook recently reminded me of a carb-filled Chilean breakfast I ate four years ago in Valparaiso, a small coastal town sometimes called “Little San Francisco.” In the center of the picture was a large hash brown covered in cheese and peppers that I ate in small bites with a fork. At the hash brown’s nine o’clock was a pita-like bread pocket that I alternately slathered with butter and dipped in olive oil. I washed it all down with a hot chocolate to coat my bones against Chile’s brisk winter. I had shared this photo on Facebook as part of a recap of my sojourn to the town, even though, aside from homemade meals I’m proud of crafting, I don’t often share pictures of food on social media.
Like many, I curate my social media feed — an extension of my external self — with care and precision. And that usually doesn’t include what I eat. Part of that is because I am fat. I don’t use the f-word to be self-deprecating or to beat myself up. It’s a non-emotional word that I use to describe my body, not a stick with which to self-flagellate. But, I am aware that eating while fat is much different than eating while skinny.
Part of that is because being fat in America comes with its own connotations. Research shows that health care professionals consider fat people unruly and repulsive, that children are less likely to befriend a fat kid, and that overweight defendants are more likely to be found guilty. People still believe that excess eating equals excess fat equals bad health. With so many moral judgments about fat people flying around, I choose not to invite any discussion of what I’m eating into my daily routine by posting about it on social media. Growing up as a fat kid, I was living in a nutritional panopticon where my eating was under constant surveillance.
Eating in public is a complicated dance where I’m trying to keep in step as my shame leads the tango. On dates, I have a rule that I only eat half of what is on my plate. Sometimes I eat beforehand so that I’ll show up full. If some sauce trickles down my lip or food falls into my lap, it’s not deemed just an innocent accident. It’s a fulfillment of the sloppy fat person prophecy.
I remember one Saturday morning as a then-beau and I scarfed down pancakes at a diner near his apartment. He smiled my way as I sopped up maple syrup and said, “I just love watching you while you eat. You’re so happy.” Diet culture insists that fat people aren’t supposed to be happy when we eat; we’re supposed to be apologetic. We’re only supposed to eat to live. In my everyday life, I can’t admit that I love to eat.
One of the few times I feel good while eating is at the movie theater, where I can rip open candy packages in the dark, away from prying eyes.
The other time is when I’m traveling abroad.
When I clicked through to the rest of my photo album from Chile I found what bordered on culinary hedonism. I encountered an image of chorrillana, a shared dish comprising a mountain of french fries topped in steak, cheese, and sautéed onions that I ate one afternoon. As in many countries, Chile doesn’t sell individual glasses of wine. So I purchased full bottles of red with dinner. I either finished them at the table or back at my bed and breakfast, as evidenced by a photo of the suggested Chilean hangover cure, pastel de choclo, a baked corn pudding casserole. Mine was served in a cast-iron skillet with wine. Its top layer was corn, cheese, and ground beef. Beneath that, chicken. Finally, underneath it all, a half of a hard-boiled egg in its lowest center.
That trip was just one in a line of annual solo trips. Part of the reason behind my yearly sojourn is to prove my moxie, to see if I have the wherewithal to find my way in unfamiliar territory. Another part of it is to be anonymous in a new place where I can eat in solitude without shame. I spent a whole day in London scouring the pubs and cafes for a perfect Sunday roast. In Mexico City, I crossed the street from one taco stand, which served its tacos filled with potatoes, to a brick-and-mortar taqueria across the street, where I downed made-to-order tacos drenched in mole.
In Bangkok, where it’s de rigueur to eat street food for most meals, I punctuated my days with pad see ew from the cart outside my hotel. When I think about that pad see ew, I’m struck first by the woman behind the single burner crafting the dish. She only made one dish. Her entire day consisted of cutting noodles, cracking eggs, and simmering broccoli, for one person at a time, then washing her pan and starting the rote process again for her next hungry patron looking to find a creature comfort at the bottom of one of her single-use paper bowls.
I’d be lying if I said that my shame didn’t sometimes stow away with me to other countries like unwanted carry-on luggage. A round-trip ticket alone cannot suppress decades of ingrained shame around eating, which can bubble up without notice. When the same pastime that brings you unbridled joy can force you to unravel, it’s not a particularly fun balance to strike. At home, a lavish spread only reads to my brain as indulgent. Abroad, I get to soothe myself with the thought that that same indulgence is an experience — a cultural exchange. And so, when on vacation, I get to feign (to myself and others) that my complicated relationship with food has become much simpler.
Most people believe that fatness is a result of excess, and that dieting, or restriction, is what a fat person needs. But, as a fat person, I can tell you that going abroad and stuffing myself is a spiritual practice, and exactly what I need.
I can’t say that I found God tucked underneath the hardboiled egg in my pastel de choclo. But I can say the dish offered me extreme comfort. It might’ve been the chicken or the ground beef, two meats that have followed me from barbecues to birthday parties. Or maybe it was the crisp, yellow corn, which my dad always served on Sundays out of an aluminum can to accompany his homemade rice and beans. Maybe it was the scraping sound that my spoon made as I dragged it against the bottom of the cast-iron skillet, which reminded me of my mother’s love for pegao, the burned brown rice at the bottom of the pot. She’d scrape it up with a fork and devour it standing by the stove.
Casually, I refer to my vacations as my own little Eat Pray Love trips, except I never graduate out of the “eat” stage. I don’t restrict my food intake as a part of my enlightenment. I’ve always been struck about how “eat” plays the opening act for the other two eponymous virtues, like an early stage you must level out of to reach spiritual enlightenment. Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir of her epicurean time in Italy is devoted to excess. And in the sense of her narrative, it makes sense. But her progression from excess (eat) to restriction (pray) reads like its own sort of stigmatizing comment on the nature of eating.
In Gilbert’s journey, eat and love exist at opposite ends of a chasm, separated by prayer. But what I enjoy most is the way all three of them collapse. The indulgence is the prayer. The eating is the love. To others, a fat person eating is confirmation bias. They see us as hell-bent on slowly killing ourselves, putting our body through the rigor of handling more food. But I’ve come to learn that eating can sometimes be healing. When I’ve wandered away from my normal life to a foreign place, I feel the very real relief that food provides. I fend off the looming worry that I might have to apologize for experiencing joy. I treat myself like I’m worthy of being overstuffed without a morsel of regret.
About the author: Mathew Rodriguez is an award-winning queer Latinx journalist and essayist. He is the associate editor of TheBody, an HIV/AIDS news website. His writing has appeared in Mic, INTO, Out, The Village Voice, The Huffington Post, and POZ, and he has work forthcoming in Teen Vogue. He also teaches nonfiction writing at UCLA. He was previously a contributing editor at Modern Loss, and an essay of his appears in the anthology Modern Loss: Candid Conversations About Grief. He loves Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Flannery O’Connor.
About the artist: Lucila Perini is a freelance illustrator based in Buenos Aires. She graduated from the University of Buenos Aires with a degree in Graphic Design, and now works as a designer and illustrator for leading brands in fashion, gastronomy, and lifestyle.
