Please stop asking about my figure

“How do you ladies stay so slim?”

That was the question put to us, three of the four authors from the Monday Morning Cooking Club (MMCC), during a Sydney Writers’ Festival session. We had just released our third book, collecting, documenting and preserving recipes and stories from our Jewish community.

It was a huge moment for us, but the question we were being asked was not about our recipes or our cooking techniques. It was about our bodies.

Though we all cook and eat with enthusiasm, some of the four women who make up the Cooking Club and wrote the book are slim, some are not. Jacqui Israel and I consider ourselves the potatoes of the group. Merelyn Frank Chalmers and Natanya Eskin are the carrots.

On the one hand I was freaking out because I didn’t know how or if I should answer the question. What if I answered it and the audience thought that I thought I was slim but – as they could see – I was not? This is what went through my mind. Can you imagine, in the middle of an interview?

On the other hand, what sort of a question was it to ask a group of serious cookbook authors who had dedicated the past 10 years to their project? A project which has everything to do with our Jewish community’s recipes, traditions and stories and the importance of the family table and absolutely nothing to do with body image and weight.

On the other hand (just call me Tevye), maybe – just maybe – it is not an unreasonable idea of a question, but it was just asked in the wrong way? Maybe people just want to know whether we actually eat all the food when we test recipes. Maybe they want to know how, when we are testing cakes, we manage to eat so much sweet stuff in one sitting. Perhaps they really wanted to ask whether or not we gained weight during the writing and testing process. Would that be an acceptable question? Or maybe I am overthinking it all?

This was not the first or last time the “slim” question had been asked. It was a common – and perhaps even accepted – question throughout our many years of MMCC interviews. The same question was put by an audience member recently when I was interviewing Elana Benjamin at a TJI event to launch her new cookbook. Oy.

I was uncomfortable for Elana because – to me – it undermined the reason she was sitting on the stage. She wrote a beautiful book about the food of her community and not about how to stay slim. But I was also mortified for myself because – as you probably guessed by now – I carry a lot of baggage around weight and the need to “be slim”.

The question is, why is that question being asked at all? Is it an acceptable question? I am sure there was no malice in the asking, the asker probably considers it a compliment. They may imagine they are praising the author for staying slim despite all that food being cooked, assuming that “being slim” is something to strive for. Perhaps they think that if they had to test recipes, they would chow down on everything and would gain weight and – god forbid – no longer be slim. So, they want to know how Elana did it, or maybe by implication, why I didn’t do it.

Growing up, I was a completely food-obsessed young person in an almost completely food-restricted household. There were two distinct personas to our household: the dieting side and the yomtov side, that only came out on Jewish festivals. My father was slim and a little judgmental. My mother (also a little judgmental) and the rest of us were not so slim but we were always aiming for it. Slimness was one of my parents’ goals for us all, so life saw us bouncing from diet to diet.

We tried them all: Israeli army, cabbage soup, Mayo Clinic, Scarsdale, Weight Watchers. I imagine many of you are nodding your heads. To make matters worse, a household obsession with dieting of course – inevitably – leads to secretive eating. Still nodding?

We had a walk-in pantry at home that was around the corner from the kitchen, a separate room. Perfect for eating on the sly. There was always a blue tin of Danish butter cookies. For those unfamiliar, the tin contains several different types of biscuits presented in individual vertical piles in paper patty pans. I used to eat the whole top layer of biscuits – one from each patty pan – because I thought no-one would notice if I did it like that. Genius, huh?

We all know nothing good comes from secretive eating. I could write an entire essay on it and how the “bad” foods – and even enjoying food too much – were associated with feelings of shame and regret.

The Weight Watchers weekly weigh-in experience was one to remember. There I was, 12 years old, in tears when the scale showed no loss. The ladies at the weigh-in table said, “go out to the bathroom and try to wee”. I did as I was told and then gingerly stepped back on and the scale showed a loss of a quarter of a pound. Woohoo. I was elated. To celebrate, my sister and I stopped at the fish and chip shop on the way home. I make light of it now, but I think the dieting pressure, and the aim to always be slim, did untold damage to my psyche (and my sister’s) so that for many decades we had – and probably still do have – issues around food.

On a first date in my single days, we went to the stunning McKell park in Darling Point. My date brought out an impressive picnic from the boot of his car: rotisserie chicken and salads from Tiffany’s Rose Bay (it was the thing!) and a perfectly chilled bottle of French champagne. And what do you think I did? You know what’s coming. I didn’t eat. Maybe I nibbled on a chicken wing but there I was, ashamed to eat, not wanting to be judged for eating with enthusiasm. I enjoyed a couple of glasses of champagne in place of food and, not that I am in any way promoting drinking on an empty stomach, we had a really fantastic afternoon. I’ve now been happily married to that date (it was Danny!) for 35 years and you’ll be pleased to know I now eat in front of him with absolute joy.

In stark contrast to the diet culture which permeated my childhood home most of the time was the feasting around Jewish festivals and special occasions. All restrictions were lifted, and it was time – and almost acceptable – to absolutely feast. This of course led to eating out of control on those occasions. Are you nodding again?

This is where my love of Jewish heritage, traditions and stories started, alongside a love of matzah balls, kreplach and latkes. A love of fresh sesame challahs shmeared with egg and onion, of fragrant honey cake kept under the seat in shul to break the fast, and of my Auntie Leah’s exceptional baked cheesecake with pastry lattice for Shavuot.

Being slim was so important to my father that, in later years with my teenage kids, he would point to each of us around the table, one by one, and say “fat”, “fat”, “thin”, “fat” as he judged us. We all laughed at the time, but it’s really not funny. My parents were absolutely loving but around food and weight, they did not excel.

When I married Danny and moved to Sydney, his family were quite the opposite. We were judged when we didn’t eat. Food was the centre of their universe, and I leapt in with open arms and an open mouth. What a joy it was, to finally be allowed to eat without judgment, to enjoy food without “that look” from my mother and to stop worrying so much about being slim (or not).

So, when someone asks the question “how do you stay so slim?”, particularly when the subject matter is neither health nor weight, I am extremely sensitive. Have we been conditioned as a society to accept that being called slim is simply a compliment? Have we made being slim the most important thing? Why are we noticing if that person on the stage is slim or otherwise? Why is it acceptable for anyone to publicly comment on (that is, judge) anyone’s size, weight or even beauty? Haven’t we progressed enough as a society to know that these are not the values we uphold and certainly not the values we want to pass on to our children?

The question is loaded with judgment and only serves to glorify diet culture. It is the culture we have been trying to suppress for many years. It is the culture of old, and we do not need to bring it to the next generation.

It may amuse you that a running MMCC joke was that the working title for our fourth book was “Monday Morning Cooking Club: Our Jeans No Longer Fit”. It is indeed a struggle to test all those recipes and not gain weight. A struggle for both the potatoes and the carrots. But it is not up to anyone else to comment or judge – or ask – whether or not we (or anyone else) have maintained a standard of “slimness” that meets universal approval.