Episode 4: Bye Bye Diets with Chef Fresh Roberson
Chef Fresh is tired of being a “good fatty.”
Transcript:
Virgie Tovar: I wanna tell you about the day, about 10 years ago, when I learned how to truly walk again.
It was a sunny morning, which is a pretty special thing in San Francisco. Only a couple months before, I had made the big decision that I was never going to diet again. That I was going to stop controlling my weight. There I was, standing at my front gate, like I did every morning, having the same thought I’d had every day since that decision. I thought, “I’m gonna try to go for a walk.”
Not a walk for exercise. Not a walk to burn some calories. Not a walk to punish myself for something I felt guilty about eating. Just… a walk.
Before I broke up with diet culture I walked quickly because that helped burn calories. Trees were just nice scenery that helped my daily jog feel less terrible. Basically, the beauty of the world was just a backdrop for punishment.
But that morning when I walked out my front gate, I saw the emerald of the trees. I saw the sparkle of the sun. I heard the cars, the birds, the far off laughter of kids playing in Golden Gate Park.
That morning, the omnipresent little voice up in my head, the same one that had told me for twenty long years that everything - every step I took - had to be about finally becoming thin… it shut up. It just... stopped. I can’t tell you how many times I had wished it away in those early days of my recovery... and it hadn’t listened. But that day I got my wish.
I could see the world again! In all of its technicolor glory! Like when Dorothy gets to the land of Oz. And maybe this sounds a little hard to believe, but it felt like I hadn’t seen any of that since I was a kid… since before I learned to hate my body. This moment was my homecoming.
I stepped out onto the sidewalk, into a world I had re-made for me. For my enjoyment... for my delight! For my pleasure! And, let me tell you! It was fucking awesome.
Today, I want to introduce you to someone who works really hard to reclaim the world for themselves and their community. CFR Roberson. They are an activist, a chef, a healer and a farmer. For CFR, the land and the food they grow on it is their inheritance. It’s part of their homecoming.
When I asked what treat they wanted to share while we talked they said that they’re not really into sweets but...
[3:11] Chef Fresh Roberson: Except I love pecan pie. And that is- there is something really funny about that because like most pecan pie is mostly sweet, I don't really know how to make sense of that. And I don't think I have to.
VT: Okay. All right. Like, are you are you. Are you enjoying already?
CFR: Yeah. There's like, there's something because. Oh. And this one- this one- mine is like a little different. I feel like I'm tasting some chocolate or something in mine.
VT: What is that? Like the filling, you know, it's so shiny and it gets stuck on your fingers and it's such a you know what I mean?
CFR: Mmmhm. Yeah.
VT: I love it. I love that. I mean, I remember I went to this like, I was in New Orleans and they were giving a tutorial on how to say pecan. They were like a pee can is what happens during- is what you need during Mardi Gras. And then a pecan is a nut. Anyway. I'm just so happy.
CFR: I love that. Because I definitely say pecan.
VT: Yeah, I agree. So you don't you don't know why you just have this like you have this, you have this, I don't know this connection to pecan pie that you can't- you can't explain. That transcends words and reason.
CFR: OK. I have a connection to pecan pie. I get part of it, too. So there's like growing up, there were certain things that I do not remember paying for. And pecans were one of those things growing up. Like my aunt lived next to a field that had a pecan tree. You go you pick them all up, you know, and, you know, I would ride with my granddad out and I don't know, I guess it was like some man that he worked for. He had like a whole grove of pecan trees. And so I could go and I could pick as many as I want to fill a bag. And then I came to college in Chicago or Evanston and I wanted to make pecan pie. So I went to the grocery store and it was a bag of pecans, a very small bag of pecans, for nine dollars and ninety nine cents.
CFR: And I was like I guess I'm not making pie! 20 bucks like... And that just felt so inaccessible to me. And I think I hadn't thought about that before. That this thing that was always abundant for me, we had pecans, would be this thing that like I would be struggling to get at that point. And so I don't know. I just think, like that was a big, like shift in understanding for me. Yeah, but I just love pecan pie.
[Interstitial Music]
[6:05] VT: Chef Fresh is a food activist in Chicago. Their life’s work is to make good food accessible to everyone. Recently they founded a collaborative food project called Fresher Together, and they provide meals for programs that increase food access for unhoused people, street youth, and seniors. They’re also a highly trained chef.
CFR: I've just always known that I didn't want to work in the kitchen of a restaurant I couldn't afford to eat in the dining room of. And so a lot of the work that I do is rooted in food, and connecting people, and access, and feeding people and taking care of folks.
VT: So what was your relationship to food like as a kid?
CFR: Oh, it was. It was interesting. I think I am the youngest child, so I'm the baby. And definitely I grew up in a household where when I was still very young and before my sister moved out, it was like my sister and my mom and my experience around them is that there was always a diet that happened, you know. And there was always this need to like shift our bodies. And I remember my sister like wrapping herself in plastic wrap and like I just didn't understand it. But it was just like very like normative and OK, And I also learned that like movement and exercise was it was like also specific to like weight loss, you know. And so, you know, my mom would go like, oh, I need to lose some pounds. Like I'm gonna go walking around the lake. It was just like very much this piece that I saw as like this bonding mechanism around, like, you know, my mom and the people she talked about at work, they were like going to the lake to walk around together because they were in some kind of competition or like, you know, like.
CFR: And so like then when I look back now, I have a hard time remembering whether like I was put on diets, like I was just like expected to be a part of this diet or whether that was like a means of me feeling connected to my mom, you know?
VT: I’m fascinated by this because what I’ve found is as horrible and life sucking as weight restriction and food restriction and dieting are, we have been socialized to use it as a way to to create intimacy, especially if you're socialized feminine. There's just something so deep about that.
[Interstitial music]
[8:50] VT: I first met Chef Fresh at NOLOSE - a really rad conference for fat queer people and allies.
CFR: At the time NOLOSE stood for National Org anization of Lesbians of Size. And I was like what? There's a group of like fat dykes that get together and like have a conference? What is that about?
VT: NOLOSE was the first time I saw a big group of fat babes just living their best lives without any sense of shame. It was like I could imagine how AHMAZING a world without fat phobia could be - complete with pool parties, fashion shows, and a killer snack table.
CFR: There would be these like lounges where they would turn like a hotel room into like just a place where you could, like, chill. And there was like every snack you could think of, you know. And so there would be like bowls of beautiful M&Ms and cookies and chips and and like carrots and hummus and like just a variety of things. You know, that image you get where you're just laying out and you being fed grapes. There were always grapes too, you know,
VT: Yes. No, and I think it's that it's that idea of being welcomed into luxury. I don't know. It's interesting right because food for me has long been a big part of asserting that I am this human who deserves to have these really pleasurable experiences. And do you remember, like I'm just thinking about, like, how I felt like as a fat person, I was only allowed to eat like steamed vegetables and chicken breast.
CFR: Yeah. Um I think that was just making me think about like having space to kind of freely eat however it is that you want to eat. And I think sometimes I remember like,, this thing around being a good fatty. And when you're out in public, you know, like, you eat a salad or you eat this or you eat that. And then I remember like having a shift and also like then being like, well, out in public, I'm going to eat a big sloppy burger because fuck you, diet culture, you know? But also is exhausting because sometimes I do want a salad, you know? But sometimes I do want a salad. I just always appreciated that like- like being introduced to this space where you can have whatever you want. If you want some carrots and hummus you can have carrots and hummus, and if you want some donuts and Oreos, you can have those too and like there's no shame and one is not right and wrong and one is not better. And like, you know, you have what you need and what your body wants.
VT: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that, like, I love that you brought that up because I've been thinking so much about that kind of this- I don't know what you call it. And maybe it's like a double bind or something. It's sort of like, you know, on the one hand, we are living in these marginalized bodies and navigating the world and navigating food and navigating how people are treating us or imagining how they're experiencing us. And then, you know, sometimes in the empowerment space, it does become about rebelling actively, which is another form of labor, which is another form of of, you know, performing the work of being marginalized. Like I have to- like not only do I have to navigate all this stuff, I have to control how you're experiencing me. And whether you're doing it like by being, quote unquote, a good fatty and like, you know, like eating salads and doing all the things in public. Or like, you know, I'm going to eat this sloppy burger They're- they're sort of like opposite sides of the same coin. And I feel it is really interesting and something that I've been thinking so much about, you know, because a lot of people ask me- I mean, on my Instagram, I do not like posting pictures of me eating, you know, like the carrots and the hummus and the salad, even though that's a part of my part of my life, right?
VT: Everyone needs food from the ground. Right. It's like medicine. But I do feel this kind of obligation that if I'm going to be photographing myself and curating an image, it's going to be about rebellion. It's going to be about destigmatizing the foods that I as a fat person was quote unquote, not allowed to have. And I do think about how sometimes this creates a box for me that I don't feel like I can navigate with full humanity. I feel like the longer I've been in fat activism, the more I'm like, OK, how do I create texture around what feels good, what I- the totality of how I exist without acquiescing to anybody's expectations. Except what I need and what I want. Which I think is really, I don't know it's really challenging. Especially when the stakes feel really high, you know? Right now, I just feel like the stakes feel like we have to like that people are being denied medical care if people are being denied access to all kinds of things like jobs and income and. Right. And like we have to create this united front. And I think this is like the trap of the marginalized person.
CFR: Yeah It's totally a trap.
[Interstitial music]
[13:53] VT: The next thing I’m going to tell you feels really vulnerable. I’ve never spoken about this publicly before. For a long time that trap - the trap of the marginalized person that Fresh and I are talking about - was enough for me. It worked for me. I was MAD AS HELL at diet culture and fatphobia, so I was content dedicating my life to showing what a farce it all was... by any means necessary.
‘You tell me not to show off my body? Well now all I’m gonna do is wear the tightest clothes I can find. ‘
‘You say fat girls are sad? Well I’m gonna wear THE BIGGEST grin all the time!’
‘You tell me I’m not desirable. I’m gonna find the most socially desirable people I can and sleep with all of them.‘
‘You tell me I’m only supposed to eat salad. I’m gonna eat all the chili cheese fries. In public. Loudly. Take that, FATPHOBIA.’
I can’t say it wasn’t fun. It was! It was definitely a necessary part of my particular path to healing. I have no judgments or regrets. The truth was, though, sometimes it was also painful and lonely.. Sometimes I just wanted to wear sweatpants. Sometimes I didn’t want to smile. Sometimes I didn’t like those people I slept with. Sometimes I did want the salad.
Do. Not. Get. Me. Wrong. I still like tight clothes and sex and eating chili cheese fries in public, but what I’m saying is this: one of the biggest things that fatphobia and diet culture take from us isn’t just the right to access a few things. It takes from us the sense that there is SO MUCH MORE.
There’s a whole wide world that we deserve access to.
The central question of my recovery has shifted from... How do I say FUCK YOU the loudest to diet culture? To.. What do I want for me?
More on that after the break.
[Midroll Break]
[18:47] VT: When we free ourselves from diet culture, we get to honor who we are and what we want. and we can finally start poking holes in the oppressive systems that keep us feeling trapped... the systems that built diet culture in the first place.Chef Fresh thinks about this stuff too. I asked them how they understand the connection.
CFR: I think about just kind of how food and our relationship to food has just been so complicated and has shifted so much, especially from looking back and I think about what did my ancestors eat? What did even, you know, like my mom and folks eat and like and then- and that closeness. But then I think about like, what did people eat and what was it like before, you know, that that long ride over here. And what was what was this land like and what does this land grow and. And what was all that like before, you know, white folks came and definitely destroyed and shifted things quite a bit.
VT: Yes. how do you see the connection between our cultural relationship to food and these very old entities like colonialism, racism, the history of this culture?
CFR: I think around like colonisation and white folks coming and and destroying crops and bringing in their own- their- the things they were experienced with growing and and and and how that shifted these culturally relevant foods that were important to us. And then like even now, not only how has that shifted it then and how that experience has happened over time, but thinking about like how that impacts what foods are like good foods to eat now or bad foods And often in the bad category falls these culturally significant foods for me, that like I- like that my parents and grandparents and ancestors have grown up eating and brought over. And you know, that are just so culturally significant and how like the like colonisation and all of that has like ripped that apart. So like ripping that food away, but then also like giving you this like image and body to aspire to and like don't eat these foods that are culturally significant for you.
VT: Yes, I mean, I want to get into that good food, bad food binary. I mean, I think that we right, like you were already talking about the good fatty, bad fatty. I feel like it's so connected. Right. But like this idea that all the things that you- that are associated with your family and your lineage, that these things are things that when you're a person of color, you need to push away. And it's part of this- it's part of a big system of assimilation And I think a lot of it has to do with like literally disconnecting and unmooring a person from who they are and where they come from. You know, growing up, I was raised in an immigrant household by my grandparents who are from Mexico. And my my grandparents really encouraged me to become, you know, an American. And they they didn't teach me Spanish. And there was a lot of incentive for me to, you know, become educated, which I think was the sort of code for assimilating as well as I could into the expectations of the culture that we were now a part of. And I remember the tension would show up in all these weird moments like the- so the story that I was thinking of was, you know, remembering these moments where I would go to the grocery store with my grandmother and I would feel really frustrated with her. And I would just you know, I would be like, how do you not know that some of this food is bad and some of the food is good? How do you not know that you're not supposed to like we're not supposed to eat hotdogs? We're not supposed to do- and there was sort of all of this this idea of like I can't believe- and I think at the time it was like, how does she not know? like everybody knows these things are bad. But as an adult, going back and thinking about that moment and realizing that in my grandmother's mind, she could not fathom a world in which somebody would intentionally put food with no nutrition into a store where you're supposed to be able to feed your family.
VT: And so she axiomatically was like, that doesn't make any sense girl. Right. And I'm coming from the place of like I've already accepted this particular system of food and being in hierarchy as fact. And I am now treating her as someone who is intellectually inferior because I've accepted that- you know, it's like it's just this kind of really- I feel like that that story speaks to that tension so much.
CFR: Definitely. That story reminded me a lot of like / I grew up in the south in eastern North Carolina. And I remember like, all of the animal gets used up. my grandfather farmed. And so my mom was like a part of a certain type of culture and a certain type of way.she used to have these phrases like ‘everything's chicken, but the bill and that's chicken still.’ Which means you eat all the chicken. You eat everything pretty much except the beak , and I'm sure we can find a purpose for the beak too, you know. And so, you know, like I grew up with her saying these things, but also at the same time being like, you know, like, what's that? That's gross. You know, my mom would- and the same is definitely true of hogs like we would use the whole pig. Like I don't even know if there's a part of the pig that does not get used. Like you use the skin and the fat, you make lard, my mom would crisp up the skin. There would be like a whole pig on the, you know, on the grill, like all of these things and I remember very clearly like growing up when I was in my like advanced courses with all of these white people, there were certain things that like they did not eat
CFR: It's like, oh, you know, a lack of education. You don't eat that part of the pig, you know.
Like having this like snotty disrespectful energy toward, like probably my mom and my family around like, ugh well they just don't know or whatever. And I think it's like very much like I think about this, like rooted in like diet culture and like what we frame as like nutrition in this way of like yeah, well, eat the chicken breast, but don't eat the chicken thigh. You know like you can eat the chicken breast, but you have to take the skin off. Or like, you know, in these ways, that is just not very conducive to what it was for like indigenous people for like you know, black folks for like, you know, Mexican folks to like really utilize and not have any waste. It's so interesting, like how all these things are so interconnected.
[Interstitial music]
[25:32] VT: When Chef Fresh was a kid, they saw how white people looked down on the way their family used whole chickens or whole pigs. But then, in recent years, using the whole animal has become trendy. And just as quickly, it could go out of vogue again. It’s so arbitrary - and if you think about it, food trends tend to exploit the traditions of marginalized people. What I’m talking about here is racism, of course, but I want to get deeper into something I like to call “racism’s creepy grandpa:” colonialism.
First, a history lesson. “Colonialism” goes back a long way. When we’re talking about the context here in the US, we’re talking about a period that started in the late 1400s when imperial powers like Spain violently claimed entire regions without regard for the indigenous populations’ autonomy or humanity.
To commit that kind of violence, colonizers HAD to buy into an ideology of European superiority and non-European inferiority.
Colonizers saw non-European beliefs as inferior. Speaking broadly, indigenous people, like many cultures all over the world, tended to believe the mind, body, spirit and land were all interconnected... dependent on each other.
Europeans largely believed in mind over matter and human domination over the natural world.
I see this same worldview living on in diet culture. Let me explain. Under diet culture people of all sizes and abilities aren’t unique beings who are inherently valuable.. They are units that we can quantify through metrics such as weight and Body Mass Index. --For instance, it blew my mind when I learned that there are people - right now! - in cultures outside the west who have never even seen a scale!
Under diet culture, food isn’t something that connects us to the land and to others. It's something we categorize as good or bad and quantify through a concept like the number of calories, grams of fat, and carbs.
Under diet culture we are taught to ignore our hunger - a very real, very important human instinct - and are rewarded for that act of control.
These are all impulses that relate directly to colonialism.
Diet culture is itself a series of traumatic events occurring over and over, each time shaving away the humanity of its practitioner a little more.
So how do we begin to recover? For Chef Fresh, part of the healing came from farming - reclaiming a relationship to the land. I asked them, what is it like for Chef when they’re farming? What does it do for them? What does that healing look like?
[Interstitial music]
[28:25] CFR: For me, it feels like- I also like puzzles. So, like, you know, puzzles are like very soothing like I put pieces together. I have like little mini celebrations when things fit and things. And then, you know, like and then I get to the end and it's like I'm missing a piece. Or maybe I'm missing two pieces. Or I'm missing, like, you know, a few pieces. And so like to me, like when I get to be in the dirt, it feels like I like found a piece, you know? To me I I think what it is is like there is something in the earth- that is like very healing, that is connecting, that is a lesson to learn. And I think it feels like very much a connection to like ancestors. And and and there's something there, I think, that is around it as to why it just feels good to me. And it feels like powerful. Right. Like it feels like, you know, like I have this thing often and I think people talk about it sometimes as like, you know, zombie apocalypse or like, I always frame it as like, you know, zombie apocalypse, a.k.a. when white folks start acting a fool, you know. Like, what am I gonna have? How am I going to be prepared?
CFR: And I think, like, when I think about things like that, like that ability around growing things that I need to eat. Being able to like, you know, feed myself, feed my community, growing like herbs, growing like these things that like provide flavor and seasoning and like all of these things. But then also like medicinal- they have medicinal qualities that like I can grow things that I need that like take care of my body and make it feel better or that heals things that I need healed. Like there's something there in that experience too that that just feels nourishing to me. And makes me feel held.
VT: Yes. I love that. I love that metaphor so much. I mean, I think that, you know what I've been- as I think about the long journey to recovering my relationship to food, I was struggling a lot you know, like thinking about, you know, what do I want my relationship to foods like vegetables that used to- really like vegetables are weaponized against fat people in like a really big way. And so it is really- it is really a challenge, I think, for me to recuperate that that experience and make the experience of like eating all kinds of food like something that feels really right and integrated and not triggering for me.
And I think a lot of people don't realize this. For a lot of people you know, what some people might think of as like, oh, it's just simply a thing. It's just simply a carrot. It's just simply a salad. Just simply whatever. Something like- something that grew in the earth, right. And how- and how twisted it is that I think for somebody like me who that that food was used to hurt me. And so I have to do a lot of work to just get- it's not like I'm starting at zero. It's like I'm starting at negative five hundred with this thing. And then trying to build a road back to it. Right. And I kind of- and I kind of realized like for me when I think back, like one of the most powerful teaching experiences I've had was working with- it was two indigenous women and they were- it was like sort of a, it was a focus on meditation and healing and understanding the earth and our connection to the earth as as part of recuperation. And they talked about the the stones like the stones and the plants being some of our oldest ancestors and how they hold all this wisdom and how they hold all this medicine.
VT: And- and for me, that became the road, right? Where I was like, oh, my God, right. This this this lettuce that I'm going to have are this carrot or this celery or this whatever. Like this thing is coming from the wisest, oldest thing that we have access to on this planet, which is the earth. This is not about some arbitrary version of like health, which is so connected to thinness and so connected to whiteness and so it connected to able bodiedness. this is my path to connecting to everything. Everything that lives, everything that has lived, everything that will live. You know?
CFR: It's it's something that I want people to be able to have access to and get and like you know, experience, even if it's briefly. Like what healing, what connection they get, if they get to like be even around plants or like be connected to the earth or put their hands in the dirt or whatever it is. I feel like it's definitely something that I want to be able to share with others. And I think about it in this way of like how do I make it accessible? You know, I had someone recently come out like the day before Thanksgiving and I was like harvesting the last little bits of stuff.
And someone I met at NOLOSE, came out and helped me harvest like the last of my sage and help me harvest like the last of my things and sat in a chair and did that right. Like you we moved it along, like we made it work. And like, you know, people sat down and like, you know, picked sage, cut things. You know, did what they needed to do. And I’m like yes. This is like exactly what it is. You know, like everybody can do it like, you know. And so I think about I think about that a lot in how it feels to me to like be able to play in the dirt. It just feels like this piece is missing, you know, and that. And I found it and I was able to fit it in there.
VT: Yes, I love it. Yes. Thank you so, so, so, so much for eating pecan pie with me and deconstructing colonialism with me and talking about food.
CFR: Yeah Thank you.
[Interstitial music]
[34:24] VT: I love the image of CFR out there, harvesting sage and using it to season the dishes they make for their community. That’s what food is really about. It’s not about calories and control. It’s about pleasure, loving our bodies, healing our bloodline, and nourishing our relationships to each other, the planet and the people whose bodies have been through a lot.
After talking with Fresh, I kept thinking about puzzle pieces and that human drive for wholeness that we all possess.
I went back to that story I told you about leaving my apartment and seeing the trees, the grass, the birds in technicolor, and I realized that was one of the most significant decolonizing moments of my life. It was like the final puzzle piece snapped into place and the puzzle was whole. I could finally see this beautiful, incredible planet and my place within it. If it was perfect, then I had to be perfect too because we were connected - completely.
For today’s journal prompt, write a breakup letter to diet culture. Maybe you’re not ready to send it quite yet, but don’t forget to list the reasons you can’t keep letting this freeloading dirtbag take up precious real estate in your mind, body and spirit.
If you want to write down your thoughts, you can send them to us at rebeleatersclub@gmail.com, or leave us a voicemail at 862-231-5386 and your story could make it onto the show. That number is 862-231-5386.
When you’re done, don’t forget to give yourself the merit badge you EARNED : the BYE BYE DIETS badge. You can print it out on our website: RebelEatersClub.com. And show us what you’re eating! Tag us on social with hashtag rebel eaters club or @transmitterpods.
Next week, we’re talking to model SHAY NEARY about how food is a witness to our experiences.
Shay Neary: We have food that bring us innate comfort because they were with us in times of struggle or times of positivity. And sometimes it can bring us great pleasure. And sometimes it can remind us of what we’ve been through.
CREDITS:
Rebel Eaters Club is an original podcast from Transmitter Media… the podcast company that’s like the shiniest chubbiest cherry tomato from your garden..
I’m Virgie Tovar. The show is produced by Lacy Roberts and Jordan Bailey. We had help this week from Alex Sujong Laughlin and Shoshi Shmuluvitz. Our editor is Sara Nics. Gretta Cohn is our executive producer.
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See you next week!