Speaker 1: Hey everyone, Virgie here, I just wanted to let you
Speaker 1: know that I might sound a little different in this episode.
Speaker 1: We recorded this one in my bedroom where I'm sheltering
Speaker 1: in place. I also wanted to note in this episode
Speaker 1: we're talking about the role restaurants play in our relationship
Speaker 1: to food. I think it's really important to acknowledge the
Speaker 1: hard time folks who work in the food and beverage
Speaker 1: industry are having right now. If you're able, check out
Speaker 1: the link in the show notes. It's a good list
Speaker 1: of organizations helping restaurants, workers and farmers in this tough time.
Speaker 1: If you have the ability, consider donating. Here's the show
Speaker 1: Growing up, I really dreaded Sunday mornings. It was church day,
Speaker 1: and church day meant the following Number one, having to
Speaker 1: wear pantyhose that chafed my inner thighs and made them
Speaker 1: red hot, and be number two having to listen to
Speaker 1: grown ups talk for hours on end about stuff that
Speaker 1: didn't make any sense. Number three sitting still while the
Speaker 1: pastor gave a sermon. He was the most boring grown
Speaker 1: up of them all. And number four all this while
Speaker 1: having access to literally zero snacks. The only thing that
Speaker 1: Redeemed Sundays was Red Lobster because when church was finally over,
Speaker 1: my grandfather would pile all of us into the dark
Speaker 1: blue station wagon, the one with little silver specks in
Speaker 1: the paint. My grandfather was the breadwinner of the family.
Speaker 1: He had been a bodybuilder in his twenties and was
Speaker 1: still pumping iron three or four times a week even then.
Speaker 1: Well into his fifties. He was the head miss at
Speaker 1: a factory, a union job. He worked long hours with
Speaker 1: other men who were big and strong like him. I
Speaker 1: remember how we'd puff out his chest when we rolled
Speaker 1: up into Red Lobster for lunch. He grow up super poor,
Speaker 1: and the idea of being able to pay for seven
Speaker 1: people's worth of seafood was a big fucking deal. My
Speaker 1: grandmother loved being the fancy lady at his side who
Speaker 1: never had to reach for her purse. When my grandpa
Speaker 1: was around, she would do her hair up in curlers
Speaker 1: on Saturday night and pick out her special Sunday outfit.
Speaker 1: Yes it was for the church people, but really it
Speaker 1: was in case we ran into anyone she knew at
Speaker 1: Red Lobster, so she could show off her family well
Speaker 1: fed and well dressed for my grandma and grandpa. Being
Speaker 1: able to go out to eat meant something really special
Speaker 1: and really specific. It meant making it in the best
Speaker 1: damn country in the world. As far as they were concerned.
Speaker 1: They had come to this country with only two dollars
Speaker 1: in their pockets, and there they were eating crab melts.
Speaker 1: They were giving their family something better than they had
Speaker 1: growing up. For that too, or three hours at red Lobster,
Speaker 1: because trust me, we stretched out lunch, we could leave
Speaker 1: all our troubles at home and laugh and eat until
Speaker 1: we were stuffed and alive with the American dream. I'm
Speaker 1: Virgie Tovar, and this is Rebel Eaters Club. We've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about the private and intimate side of food,
Speaker 1: but my guess today will walk us from the intimacy
Speaker 1: of home to the public domain, where food takes on
Speaker 1: yet another dimension. So Lah is the restaurant critic at
Speaker 1: the San Francisco Chronicle. I'm delighted that I even got
Speaker 1: to choose a snack that's such an upgrade from the
Speaker 1: usual choice. Taught me that when it comes to eating out,
Speaker 1: there's a way more to it than meets the eye.
Speaker 1: So La, do you want to tell us the snack
Speaker 1: that you chose. Right in front of us is a
Speaker 1: yellow package of saki eka, which is prepared shredded squid.
Speaker 1: You often find this in Asian grocery stores, and this
Speaker 1: was the snack that I would always gravitate to when
Speaker 1: I was a kid and we were going grocery shopping.
Speaker 1: I would grab it and just you know, just throw
Speaker 1: it in the shopping cart without asking. Yeah. So to
Speaker 1: this day, I love it. It's just squid jerky, sometimes
Speaker 1: cold fish jerky, sometimes spicy, sometimes not. But it just
Speaker 1: tastes like really sweet and savory and salty, and it's
Speaker 1: so chewy. You really have to work on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you want to do the honors? Okay? So, and
Speaker 1: there's like a bloom of fermented squid smell that flies
Speaker 1: out at you once you open the bag. So perfect.
Speaker 1: I put way too much in my mouth just now
Speaker 1: because I'm so excited. M Yeah, it's gone that like
Speaker 1: that taste of the sea. M m. But it's so mummy.
Speaker 1: It just makes you salivate. No, thank you for bringing
Speaker 1: this for me. Um, thank you for opening up the package.
Speaker 1: So it was so beautiful and it's delicious. Um. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we can keep snacking on this delicious, stringy, bloomy
Speaker 1: aromatic treat um. In the meanwhile, though, I need to
Speaker 1: know who are you? Who you are? Who is so late? Sure? Um?
Speaker 1: I am a restaurant critic. My pronounced are she her hers?
Speaker 1: And I work for the San Francisco Chronicle. Um. I
Speaker 1: started the job about a year ago, so I'm fairly
Speaker 1: new to the restaurant critic world. But previously I had
Speaker 1: a podcast called Racist Sandwich, which was all about how
Speaker 1: food intersected with race and class and gender. And I
Speaker 1: was a freelance writer. I would do things once in
Speaker 1: a while as befit in my mood, but my main
Speaker 1: gig was cooking and working in the restaurant world. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask you about a million questions. I remember someone
Speaker 1: I was dating brought it up. We were driving somewhere
Speaker 1: and he was like, Oh, did you hear that there's
Speaker 1: this new restaurant critic for the Chronicle? And she really
Speaker 1: made a splash, and she sort of a little bit
Speaker 1: talked about how she wasn't interested in reviewing and revering
Speaker 1: places like Chapennice and it's just like and he was like,
Speaker 1: I think it's right up your alley, and I would
Speaker 1: just want of the things to like, wait, had this
Speaker 1: thirty minute conversation about that. This is when you know
Speaker 1: you've succeeded when like people can have a thirty minute
Speaker 1: conversation about something that you did through hearsay and it's stimulating.
Speaker 1: So can you talk about that? Like what what is
Speaker 1: your day to day life like? As a restaurant critic,
Speaker 1: I read a lot of Yelp, which is funny because
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not supposed to write Yelp reviews basically
Speaker 1: because that's not the style that I do. But it
Speaker 1: is interesting to me to see what's coming up, what's interesting,
Speaker 1: like what's new, A lot of research because there are
Speaker 1: more than seven thousand restaurants in San Francisco alone, right
Speaker 1: and there are three hundred and sixty five days in
Speaker 1: a year, so really need to choose wisely what's happening here.
Speaker 1: Often when I go out, it's for dinner, and so
Speaker 1: I'm probably going out to eat maybe like five times
Speaker 1: a week minimum, and I usually if I have to
Speaker 1: make reservations, I'll make it under a fake name. The
Speaker 1: anonymity part is just for me to help workers be
Speaker 1: less stressed at least in the lead up, and just
Speaker 1: to help me avoid some awkwardness because it gets off
Speaker 1: word sometimes, can I ask about your methodology as a
Speaker 1: restaurant critic? Sure? So when I started the job, you know,
Speaker 1: I was always criticizing the food media from the outside.
Speaker 1: I was always talking about how you know, like even
Speaker 1: for something that is so light as a genre, you know,
Speaker 1: people don't really take it seriously, it can still perpetuate
Speaker 1: colonial ideas like fat shaming, ideas like there are really
Speaker 1: serious things that we engage with through food media, even
Speaker 1: if we don't acknowledge it, right through othering of other
Speaker 1: people's cuisines, through talking about food and gendered ways, like
Speaker 1: all kinds of really below the waves kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And So when I got this job, which was very
Speaker 1: unlikely to me that I got this job, but I did,
Speaker 1: I realized, Okay, here's my chance. I have a much
Speaker 1: bigger platform. Here's a chance to really engage with those
Speaker 1: things that I was so worried about and worked up
Speaker 1: about when I was on the outside. And here's how
Speaker 1: to put it in practice. Right, So, how do you
Speaker 1: write about food and restaurants in a way that acknowledges
Speaker 1: that there are more than two genders. For instance, how
Speaker 1: do you write about restaurants in a way that doesn't
Speaker 1: otherize people who didn't grow up eating mashed potatoes? Right?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? The La Times is food
Speaker 1: critic Patricia Scarsega just released a newsletter about how the
Speaker 1: La Times Food section will no longer italicize foreign words.
Speaker 1: And she used foreign in quotes. She's of Mexican descent,
Speaker 1: and so she was talking a lot about like, who
Speaker 1: is being made to feel foreign just so you can
Speaker 1: italicize words because it's your style or whatever. And I
Speaker 1: thought that was really interesting. When I first started the job,
Speaker 1: I wrote a whole list of words that I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to use, you know, in my writing, which I
Speaker 1: ask what they are? Yeah, it was a little indulgent,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to also introduce myself, you know, because
Speaker 1: I was kind of an unknown quantity for a lot
Speaker 1: of people who subscribe to the chronicle. The words included
Speaker 1: things like ethnic for instance, like what is ethnic cuisine?
Speaker 1: What do you imagine Do you imagine a French beastro
Speaker 1: Spanish top us or do you imagine like you know,
Speaker 1: Indonesian food or Indian food? Um, like crack I don't
Speaker 1: use that phrase addictive. I don't use that phrase guilt.
Speaker 1: I don't use any sort of language of guilt when
Speaker 1: I talk about food. Oh yes, basic right, um, you know,
Speaker 1: but we get pitched on it all the time, right
Speaker 1: as like writers, you know, the guilt free Pasta for
Speaker 1: twenty right, all that stuff. It's just no No. I
Speaker 1: was reading the piece that you did on the SF
Speaker 1: restaurant La Colonial? Am I saying that correctly? I don't know.
Speaker 1: We're not French? Yes, oh my god. I always in
Speaker 1: my regular life I intentionally consistently mess up French, like
Speaker 1: I'll say frights instead of free any who whatever. Anyway,
Speaker 1: all that to say, you know, in that piece, you're
Speaker 1: kind of talking about these restaurants that are romanticizing eras
Speaker 1: that are in fact very violent, and the allure of
Speaker 1: the restaurant from the person who is dining is that
Speaker 1: you are the person in power in that experience, right yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it A good place to start is thinking about,
Speaker 1: in any context, who is doing the serving and who's
Speaker 1: being served, and in what ways are those demographics whatever normalized,
Speaker 1: and well, in what way are they normalizing hierarchies that
Speaker 1: are present in that context, right, So when I think
Speaker 1: about a restaurant like Colonial, which is essentially caused playing
Speaker 1: French colonial Indo China, which was what they called Indo China,
Speaker 1: like Vietnam a Cambodia, you know, the glory days before
Speaker 1: the revolution, before the uprising, before the French got kicked out.
Speaker 1: Place you're you're prompted to take on the positionality of
Speaker 1: the colony um. You know, you are in a place
Speaker 1: that is kind of rustic, lots of mahogany everywhere, the
Speaker 1: people serving you are mainly people of color. The furniture
Speaker 1: is of that era, and it's just this moment of
Speaker 1: peace where everything is so secure, locked in, you know,
Speaker 1: before everything's upended by revolution war. And to me, that's
Speaker 1: so troubling. Pleasure is really troubling. And maybe that has
Speaker 1: a lot to do with me and my shit. But
Speaker 1: any time I feel like you are asked to or
Speaker 1: you're lulled into this sense of complacency of just accepting stimuli,
Speaker 1: I feel suspicious, you know, because that's when you're the
Speaker 1: most susceptible to ideology. And restaurants are that place for
Speaker 1: a lot of people where our senses of gender are
Speaker 1: reinforced right, Like there are many restaurants still to this
Speaker 1: day where women, if they are in mixed company, they
Speaker 1: receive menus that don't have prices on them, and so
Speaker 1: many people um realize, you know, their bodies don't fit
Speaker 1: the restaurant, either the chairs or the floor plan or whatever,
Speaker 1: and they're treated like furniture. Um. So they're not only
Speaker 1: sensitive places of pleasure, but they're also places where who
Speaker 1: gets to feel pleasure? You know, there's there are assumptions
Speaker 1: based on who they are, like what you bring to
Speaker 1: the place, so you know, they're not ideologically empty places. Restaurants,
Speaker 1: you know, for for many people with power, pleasure is
Speaker 1: derived from hierarchy, and it's derived from people being in
Speaker 1: the places that they're supposed to be. And sometimes that
Speaker 1: means not in your presence. Yes, yes, well I'm just
Speaker 1: letting that soakin um. Yes. On the other hand, recently
Speaker 1: I went to a restaurant in the mission for the
Speaker 1: first time called Prubetsu, which is Tomorrow for Bonapati essentially,
Speaker 1: and it is a Guamanian restaurant, and the chefs are
Speaker 1: really clear about how colonialism informs the food that they
Speaker 1: serve because Guam, you know, has been colonized, taken over
Speaker 1: whatever occupied by the US, Spanish, Japanese, and had a
Speaker 1: lot of influence from the Philippines and China as well.
Speaker 1: So the food that they make, you know, the tomorrow,
Speaker 1: like the indigenous people, is very much you know, full
Speaker 1: of spam and like Chinese vegetables and um like sausages
Speaker 1: and like all kinds of things from all of these people. Yes,
Speaker 1: Vietnamese food is a similar thing. Filipino food is a
Speaker 1: very very similar thing. Um, Indigenous American food is similar.
Speaker 1: Has a lot of those sorts of you know, like
Speaker 1: with fry, bread, those those hallmarks of this is what
Speaker 1: we received and this is what we're going to do
Speaker 1: with it, you know, this is how we survive. In
Speaker 1: that way, I find those stories so empowering and so interesting.
Speaker 1: You know that even when you are in this kind
Speaker 1: of culture that is treating you as something to be
Speaker 1: trampled underfoot, you will still find ways to make something
Speaker 1: beautiful and sustaining and fulfilling for you and your family
Speaker 1: or your loved ones. And in that way, you know,
Speaker 1: you can, even under conditions of extreme darress, like create
Speaker 1: something amazing. And I just love that. So for me,
Speaker 1: every article that I write or every review is an
Speaker 1: opportunity to really think about that and wrestle with that
Speaker 1: and try to change things just slightly. And that's the
Speaker 1: sphere that I can influence as a food writer. I
Speaker 1: can't influence everything and everyone all at once, but if
Speaker 1: I can change this little thing, I can maybe die happy.
Speaker 1: So Lay is a radical presence in the food media
Speaker 1: world for a lot of reasons. For one, she shifts
Speaker 1: the perspective of the critic. There's this concept I first
Speaker 1: learned about in graduate school. It's called positionality. It's the
Speaker 1: acknowledgement that who you are influences how what you think.
Speaker 1: Food media has for a long time been dominated by
Speaker 1: wealthy white men's voices. As a result, we've been taught
Speaker 1: to think about food the way they think about food,
Speaker 1: as if their positionality is the default way of seeing
Speaker 1: the world. But most of us aren't wealthy white men,
Speaker 1: and acknowledging that frees us up to see that every
Speaker 1: single dish has a history and a context and that
Speaker 1: those things matter. That seems pretty obvious to me, but
Speaker 1: that simple acknowledgement is immediately seen as political. And what
Speaker 1: Soleah is doing writing about how colonialism has affected Guamanian food,
Speaker 1: for example, makes some people feel very uncomfortable. More on
Speaker 1: that after the break. We're back. Before the break, we
Speaker 1: were talking about how so Late is disrupting business as
Speaker 1: usual with her food writing. There's a there's a perception
Speaker 1: that I'm bringing politics into the genre, but the reality
Speaker 1: is politics have always been present, just in ways that
Speaker 1: we're acknowledged as you know, um as nail sticking out
Speaker 1: of the board in the same way. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: also say that a lot of people kind of consider
Speaker 1: my you know, my positionality as inherently radical, right, um,
Speaker 1: and you hinted at that, But I think that what
Speaker 1: is more interesting. I think because you can be like me,
Speaker 1: and you can look like me, and you can you know,
Speaker 1: want to have sex with people that I want to
Speaker 1: have sex with, but you might want to just uphold
Speaker 1: the old ways of doing things anyway, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. So for me, I'm always wrestling with like,
Speaker 1: how do I maintain my politics, maintain like the way
Speaker 1: that I see the process and technique going and the
Speaker 1: way it should go, while also not resting on my
Speaker 1: identity as like the inherently interesting thing about me, because
Speaker 1: that's also the critique that I get from people who
Speaker 1: are in bad faith, but also there's a hint of
Speaker 1: truth there who say, like I'm a diversity hire, you know,
Speaker 1: and I don't ever want to pretend or to just
Speaker 1: kind of shrug backwards into that, you know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't know what you mean. Can we go back
Speaker 1: into your background, like what was food like growing up
Speaker 1: for you? So my family is Vietnamese. They're Vietnamese refugees.
Speaker 1: I'm the first of the first generation to be born
Speaker 1: in the US. My grandmother raised me when I was
Speaker 1: very young in Illinois, where my family was put and
Speaker 1: then my mom moved my sister in nyat to New
Speaker 1: York to go into fashion, which was very exciting, and
Speaker 1: she was a single mom for most of the time,
Speaker 1: and a lot of our meals we were like simple,
Speaker 1: like TV dinner type things. But then like once in
Speaker 1: a while, it would be delivery, because you know in
Speaker 1: New York we lived in Manhattan. Yeah, everybody delivered. McDonald's
Speaker 1: delivered in the nineties, which is you know nothing now,
Speaker 1: everyone did not know that. That's amazing. Continue there's a
Speaker 1: number you could call that would route you to the
Speaker 1: nearest McDonald's and it was two and two, three through
Speaker 1: seven fast and they actually remembered our orders after a while,
Speaker 1: which is really embarrassing. When my mom was your order,
Speaker 1: I think I would get like a cheeseburger happy meal.
Speaker 1: My sister would get the chicken nuggets. And so every
Speaker 1: time we would do what, my mom would fan out
Speaker 1: the menus. Was there were physical menus back then, yes,
Speaker 1: and she would ask to do you guys want Indian,
Speaker 1: Chinese tie Vietnamese? Like what do you want? My palette
Speaker 1: was developed from that. You know. It wasn't just American
Speaker 1: or Vietnamese, but it was all of this stuff because
Speaker 1: I wanted to try you know, m Pollock paneer or
Speaker 1: you know, a burrito or all this stuff. It was
Speaker 1: really cool in that way. Was food. Was there a
Speaker 1: point where food became fraught for you? Hmmmm? I can't
Speaker 1: think of the point. My mom was always on a
Speaker 1: diet like my whole life, and she would joke that
Speaker 1: we did it to her pregnancy. You know, she was
Speaker 1: always trying to lose that weight and she was always
Speaker 1: much smaller than me. And so the point at which
Speaker 1: I outpaced her in size, that's when I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: should I be worried about this, you know, right, And
Speaker 1: she never compelled me to go on a diet or
Speaker 1: anything like that, right, But it was more just the
Speaker 1: I was in a typical family where talking about weight
Speaker 1: was kind of a constant thing. Yeah, it was just
Speaker 1: a way for people to make fun of you. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that was That was a contradictory, like weird
Speaker 1: part of my upbringing that I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people probably couldn't relate to where you're just people are
Speaker 1: always talking about fat people, and you're always afraid of
Speaker 1: fat people, like the specter of fatness is always chasing you, um,
Speaker 1: and as they give you like that second helping of
Speaker 1: noodles or whatever, Yes, just like whatever, guys. And so
Speaker 1: you realize over time like that, this isn't about food.
Speaker 1: I luckily kind of escaped any sort of disordered feeling
Speaker 1: about food because it was my primary thing of interest
Speaker 1: besides video games. So if I lost that, I don't
Speaker 1: know what else I would have. I think I tried
Speaker 1: to go on a diet once and I was just
Speaker 1: like a total failure because like I didn't want to
Speaker 1: do it, couldn't do it. Yeah, I mean they pretty
Speaker 1: they suck pretty bad. Yeah, yeah they do. You know,
Speaker 1: you're like, you literally have a person's salaries worth of
Speaker 1: that's your budget for eating for the year, right, So
Speaker 1: you have this incredible array of food experiences. Many of
Speaker 1: them are sort of in these traditionally referred to as
Speaker 1: like fine dining establishments. Can you kind of talk about
Speaker 1: the role of fat phobia and food anxiety in those spaces.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting when people who are you know, trying
Speaker 1: to insult me or whatever, because that happens. You know,
Speaker 1: people get really heated over restaurant reviews. You know, they
Speaker 1: talk about my weight, which is just like funny to
Speaker 1: me because like, what do you expect, yes, when you
Speaker 1: eat for a living, like you're not going to be
Speaker 1: Gwyneth Paltrow. Well, I mean, but there is this kind
Speaker 1: of mythology because our idea of a foodie is a
Speaker 1: thin person, right. Our idea of sort of somebody who's
Speaker 1: like this aspirational gourmand is consistently i mean not only
Speaker 1: like assist ender man, but also a thin person. And
Speaker 1: I kind of want to unpack that. Yeah, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think it's a the perception of the restaurant critic
Speaker 1: or the foodie or whatever is that they are an expert,
Speaker 1: and when you're an expert, you don't consume to excess, right,
Speaker 1: And like when you have a body that's larger, that
Speaker 1: is a symbol of excess, right, right, it's a symbol
Speaker 1: that of you not having control, whereas like expertise is
Speaker 1: the ultimate control. Yes, so like how do you square
Speaker 1: that circle? Oh? Sleigh? Yes? Yes, I think it's also
Speaker 1: kind of a function of do you are you willing
Speaker 1: to respect a fat person? For a lot of people
Speaker 1: who don't think very hard about it, probably not right,
Speaker 1: you know, right, like you're the fat person. It's a joke.
Speaker 1: They're not someone you listen to. But you know, it
Speaker 1: takes a lot of work to to taste all this food,
Speaker 1: to eat all this who would actually like think deep
Speaker 1: thoughts about it beyond I had the steak it was
Speaker 1: too salty, you know what I mean? Yes, you're not
Speaker 1: just taking one bite and like Okay, that was pretty
Speaker 1: good and then like move on, right, you know, like
Speaker 1: that is a very shallow way of engaging, and you
Speaker 1: don't you also wouldn't trust someone who only ordered one
Speaker 1: thing and left and then like wrote a whole article
Speaker 1: about it, right, right, it's real work, It's a real job. Yes,
Speaker 1: So for someone to insult me based on how I
Speaker 1: look or whatever, it's just completely like what do you try? Like,
Speaker 1: it's nonsensical, you know, insult me for what I do.
Speaker 1: My emergence as someone who became interested in food in
Speaker 1: a nerdy way was highly connected with my experience a
Speaker 1: fat phobia essentially, Right, Like, I'm in high school, I'm horny,
Speaker 1: I'm a nerd. I desperately want a boyfriend, and no
Speaker 1: one will date me because I'm a fat pariah. Right,
Speaker 1: And I turned to you know, a phone personal service. Essentially,
Speaker 1: I started talking to older businessmen. All that to say, Right, Like,
Speaker 1: my first experiences going on dates were actually at fine
Speaker 1: dining establishments in San Francisco. Food became a site or
Speaker 1: a location of a lot of tension for me because
Speaker 1: I saw I began to see not only these people,
Speaker 1: like these white businessmen, as these sort of heroic figures
Speaker 1: because I could tell from how they were being treated
Speaker 1: by others that they were respected. In my mind, there's
Speaker 1: a sort of cross wiring that occurred around like white masculinity,
Speaker 1: fine dining, getting away from my roots. Do you know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about? That kind of like circuitry that
Speaker 1: begins to occur. Yes, it's called ideology. I mean, do
Speaker 1: you have experience with this? I'm just curious, like what
Speaker 1: is your wiring? Like, oh god, that's a hell of
Speaker 1: a question. I think a lot of the way I
Speaker 1: think has very much been informed by m really not
Speaker 1: liking myself. And I still don't really like myself. I
Speaker 1: never really like myself. I dissociate constantly, you know, And
Speaker 1: it's a very exercised muscle, my ability to kind of
Speaker 1: feel like an alien. And in later life I've been
Speaker 1: able to use that to my advantage as an analytical
Speaker 1: kind of mode. Yes, I relate, Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: it also made me feel very judgmental, but so like
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, okay, where what's the line between
Speaker 1: my personal sense of pettiness and actually rigorous kind of
Speaker 1: study and thinking about how things are connected. You know,
Speaker 1: for me, that's been my struggle and also like why
Speaker 1: would I be judgmental if I'm shit? You know, Like
Speaker 1: that doesn't make any sense, right, See, this is me
Speaker 1: talking to the therapist. I don't have thank you. But
Speaker 1: the thing is, there's so much that is kind of
Speaker 1: pulled into that because there's like, you know, me being
Speaker 1: the child of refugees who don't really belong and also
Speaker 1: not being able to speak to them in Vietnamese and
Speaker 1: not feeling like I belong with my family either, and
Speaker 1: I'm being the only out queer person in my family,
Speaker 1: like all of this stuff. Yeah, I mean, I kind
Speaker 1: of I want to talk about this theme of belonging
Speaker 1: because I mean, I've I've been talking to people, I've
Speaker 1: been thinking a lot and hearing a lot of stories
Speaker 1: about how food can be this locus of alienation or
Speaker 1: of belonging, or of faking it or you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, or or of feeling like you're passing, or
Speaker 1: and it has all of these meanings. What is it?
Speaker 1: What does it have for you? I love food, I
Speaker 1: love eating food, I love like tasting new things. At
Speaker 1: the same time, it's a reminder that pleasure hides so
Speaker 1: many things behind it. So for me, it's it's an
Speaker 1: embodiment of that anxiety of just like, I can't trust
Speaker 1: this feeling of good because there's always something behind it,
Speaker 1: which is true though yeah it's not just paranoia, it's
Speaker 1: so true, right, But it's like the privilege is really
Speaker 1: then not having to have that thought. Yes, I find
Speaker 1: it really fascinating as a food critic because you know,
Speaker 1: the things that a food critic is thought to like
Speaker 1: are very much, you know, demographically based, right to say
Speaker 1: it nicely, So the things that I like are very different, right,
Speaker 1: and like it is a lot of people's jobs to
Speaker 1: figure out what I like me personally, right, what I enjoy,
Speaker 1: And so often when I see a dissonance in that,
Speaker 1: I'm just like, oh wow, this is so interesting. When
Speaker 1: they try to appeal to me as if I were
Speaker 1: an old white man, I'm just like WHOA. The easy
Speaker 1: example is like when I went to the Friends Laundry, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and the chef owner, Thomas Keller, took me and my friend,
Speaker 1: a colleague, to on a tour. He showed us the
Speaker 1: wine room where they have like the tens of thousand
Speaker 1: bottles of wine, and I was like, oh wow, that's cool.
Speaker 1: It's a lot. Then then in the wine room there's
Speaker 1: this humid or, and then like they offered me a cigar,
Speaker 1: but I've never smoked a cigar in my life, and
Speaker 1: I was like what what, Like, first of all, I
Speaker 1: think of them as really gross, and when anyone smokes
Speaker 1: a cigar in near me, I'm just like what what
Speaker 1: are you? So, I'm like a political cartoon, like what
Speaker 1: is this? I would never offer anyone a cigar unless
Speaker 1: I knew for a fact like oh yeah, this guy
Speaker 1: cigar freak just had a baby, like yeah, let's do it,
Speaker 1: you know, but like yes, So it was very much
Speaker 1: that felt like an imposition that was strange, like are
Speaker 1: you are you? Are you offering this to someone who's
Speaker 1: not here, like a ghost that's hovering behind me? Like
Speaker 1: what is this? Yes? You know what I mean? And
Speaker 1: that way, I felt like they were trying to appeal
Speaker 1: to someone that I wasn't, Like I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't even know if this is a question, but I'm
Speaker 1: kind of thinking about like this idea of you being
Speaker 1: a tastemaker, you do you your relationship to food has
Speaker 1: this entire this utility that's really fascinating. Well yeah, in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, I'm I am trying to change
Speaker 1: other people's relationships to food. Yes, you know, we know
Speaker 1: that taste isn't universal when we think about cilantro people
Speaker 1: for instance, yes, for them, they taste soap, so not
Speaker 1: why taste is very much personal? Like for so many people,
Speaker 1: taste is a personality whether you're talking about Star Wars
Speaker 1: or Italian wine or you know, anything else. Right, And
Speaker 1: that's when things get dangerous. I think any sort of
Speaker 1: critique of that thing is going to drive you into
Speaker 1: a rage, you know, because that is an attack on
Speaker 1: you personally. So that's one aspect of it that I've
Speaker 1: experienced this year. Yes, you represent to maybe the person
Speaker 1: who's been reading the San Francisco Chronicle for a long time,
Speaker 1: in reading the food section, and you know you represent,
Speaker 1: would you call it a threat to their worldview? Or like,
Speaker 1: what would you call that? I think for some yes,
Speaker 1: I think that's the only reason why people would send
Speaker 1: hate mail. Right. It's like, oh, obviously they feel threatened,
Speaker 1: or they're scared, or they feel a violent objection to
Speaker 1: like whatever I'm doing. That's the explanation that I have,
Speaker 1: at least, because you've invested so much money and time
Speaker 1: and travel or whatever in developing your sense of taste.
Speaker 1: If the person who is a tastemaker doesn't care about
Speaker 1: some or all of those things, then where does that
Speaker 1: leave you? And you know, I think anyone who tries
Speaker 1: to kind of shake the foundation of like, for instance,
Speaker 1: like French food being superior or American food being superior
Speaker 1: whatever to the mongrel race food of brown people. You
Speaker 1: know that's going to be seen as an attack, Yes, well,
Speaker 1: I mean right, it seems to maybe to the average person,
Speaker 1: it would seem kind of extreme for someone to write
Speaker 1: hate mail to a restaurant critic. Yeah, you would think,
Speaker 1: but they all claim to be normal people, right right.
Speaker 1: I guess like this is sort of a theoretical accidental question,
Speaker 1: but those are my favorite What are you coming for?
Speaker 1: What do they feel like you're coming for when they're
Speaker 1: writing this mail to you? Oh God, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean I think there's a portion of it that
Speaker 1: is like a generational kind of conflict. I think where
Speaker 1: I am just another millennial coming for boomers. Yes, or
Speaker 1: I'm just a hater and they can't abide that. Although
Speaker 1: why are you reading a restaurant review if you don't
Speaker 1: want to read any criticism of anything? Right? And you know,
Speaker 1: for me to talk about things that are facts, like colonialism,
Speaker 1: to use the word white, they're seen as like extremely radical.
Speaker 1: You know, sure it's inherently political, but everything is. If
Speaker 1: I can change the way people think about, for instance,
Speaker 1: Vietnamese food and like why why we consume it, why
Speaker 1: it looks the way it does, all of that stuff,
Speaker 1: and maybe the next time they get abund me they
Speaker 1: think about it. They think about colonialism, they think about like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, like the resilience of these people for making
Speaker 1: this kind of food under the feet of French colonizer.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting to me. That's that's really important, you know, yes, totally.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, and
Speaker 1: thanks for all the squid. Recently, I went into this
Speaker 1: little book shop down the street from my house. I
Speaker 1: was looking for a gift from my boyfriend's niece, Adeline.
Speaker 1: Adeline has long hair down to or waist, loves the
Speaker 1: movie Frozen, and pronounces my name Vogie. She was turning
Speaker 1: four and we wanted to find her something for the
Speaker 1: burgeoning feminist. And as I was browsing, I picked up
Speaker 1: a book called Frybread, a Native American family story by
Speaker 1: Kevin Noble Millard. It goes, frybread is food, frybread is time,
Speaker 1: frybread is sound, frybread is us. And then there's this
Speaker 1: page frybread is history, the long Walk, the stolen land,
Speaker 1: strangers in our own world. With unknown food. We made
Speaker 1: new recipes from what we had, and I stood there
Speaker 1: in the shop thinking about frybread and so Leah and
Speaker 1: I felt so grateful. But this beautiful little book summed
Speaker 1: up everything I hope to get at in Rebel Eaters Club.
Speaker 1: I've spent this entire season talking with amazing people about
Speaker 1: food from different perspectives. Mia and I talked about how
Speaker 1: food is family. Bailey and I talked about how food
Speaker 1: is healing. Deb and I talked about how food is fun.
Speaker 1: Chef Fresh and I talked about how food is land.
Speaker 1: Shay and I talked about how food is comfort, and
Speaker 1: so Lay and I talked about how food is political.
Speaker 1: The food we have access to and how we prepare
Speaker 1: it has a history, sometimes a violent one, of turning wars, struggle, famine, resiliency,
Speaker 1: and hope into craft into something nourishing, celebratory, connective, delicious.
Speaker 1: I hope this season of Rebel Eaters Club so far
Speaker 1: has helped you see food as more than calories or
Speaker 1: a commodity. We've talked about diet culture too, that thing
Speaker 1: that gets in the way of under standing how complicated
Speaker 1: and powerful food is. It takes away to healing, the
Speaker 1: fun and the potential that can come from our relationships
Speaker 1: with ourselves too, and with each other. I hope this
Speaker 1: season of Rebel Eaters Club has helped you begin the
Speaker 1: breakup with diet culture. It is long overdue, girl, because
Speaker 1: we are masses of stardust who have the limitless capacity
Speaker 1: to experience and share pleasure, connection, healing, delight, difficulty, and comfort,
Speaker 1: all on a full stomach. For this week's prompt, write
Speaker 1: a contract with your inner rebel eater. Maybe you have
Speaker 1: some thoughts about how you'd like to change your relationship
Speaker 1: to food, but you haven't put them into practice yet.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've decided to stop using moralized language around food.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've realize that commenting on your weight is not
Speaker 1: a practice that works anymore. Write these things down. This
Speaker 1: can be a living document. It can be a contract
Speaker 1: with yourself that you look back on and add to
Speaker 1: whenever you want. If you want to show your thoughts,
Speaker 1: you can send them to us at Rebel Eaters Club
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com or leave us a voicemail at
Speaker 1: eight six two two three one five three eight six,
Speaker 1: and your story could make it onto the show. When
Speaker 1: you're done, don't forget to give yourself the merit badge
Speaker 1: you earned the food is life badge. You can print
Speaker 1: it out on our website, Rebel Eatersclub dot com and
Speaker 1: show us what you're eating. Tag us on social with
Speaker 1: hashtag Rebel Eaters Club, or at transmitter pods. We'll be
Speaker 1: back next week with an episode recorded live at our
Speaker 1: San Francisco launch event and more of your voicemails. I
Speaker 1: wanted to share this one this week from Jordan in
Speaker 1: New Jersey. I just finished listening to the episode with
Speaker 1: Chef Fresh, who I love just they just have such
Speaker 1: a wonderful story and it really made me think about
Speaker 1: a lot. I'm reflecting on my current challenge with food
Speaker 1: right now, which is what is good nutrition separate from
Speaker 1: diet culture? Like what is my truth about my body
Speaker 1: separate from diet culture? Like I don't fucking know what
Speaker 1: to be eating without thinking what is going to make
Speaker 1: me fat and what it's going to be make in
Speaker 1: And that fucking sends me off because it's just been
Speaker 1: ruling my whole life and I hate it, and so
Speaker 1: like that's my breakup letter, Like that's the one I
Speaker 1: want to write because most of my life, like diet
Speaker 1: culture and white supremacy and colonialism and capitalism have been
Speaker 1: like writing the narrative of what my truth is around
Speaker 1: my body. I will happily hear the next podcast when
Speaker 1: it comes out. Thanks much. Rubel Eaters Club is an
Speaker 1: original podcast from Transmitter Media, the podcast company that's like
Speaker 1: finding a stash of chocolate that you forgot you saved
Speaker 1: for yourself. I'm Virgie Tovar. The show is produced by
Speaker 1: Lacy Roberts and Jordan Bailey. Our editor is Sarah Knicks.
Speaker 1: Gretta Cohen as our executive producer. Like what you hear
Speaker 1: on the show and want to sponsor us, Send us
Speaker 1: a note at Rubbel Eaters Club at gmail dot com
Speaker 1: and let us know and please head to your favorite
Speaker 1: podcast app and give us a review. It will help
Speaker 1: us grow the club. See you next week.