I am a good eater. I’m not picky like my sister. I like eggs and milk (unlike Robin). For a while there when I’m very young, I pick all the onions out of my food like she does, but I learn very quickly not to mind having them there. They’re a little slimy, but they just taste like what they’re cooked with. I like mushrooms. I like fish, the broiled kind, as well as the kind fried in cornmeal like Grandma Johnson makes. I even learn to like oysters, at least the chewy outside-parts (I leave the squishy middles for Mama and Daddy).
There are just a few things that I really, really don’t like: I hate lima beans cooked with ham. Other kinds of beans are good, but lima beans have this weird sharp-taste. Also they’re big and squishy, and kind of dry-feeling in the middle. I always have to cover my serving with catsup so I can even eat it. Then I’m still the last person at the table those nights, because I don’t like catsup very much either. I don’t like squash. Mama and Daddy have a deal with us: You have to eat a vegetable with your dinner, but it can be either salad or the cooked vegetable, you don’t have to eat both. So most nights when Mama makes squash, I eat the salad instead. Only sometimes there isn’t any salad. I eat one piece of squash. I put it on the tip of my tongue, and I gulp it down like a pill, with lots of milk. It usually wants to come right back up when I eat it like that, but I don’t let it, because I know I’m just going to have to eat another one if it does.
Most of the things Mama makes, I like a lot. I love her spaghetti, because she puts canned mushrooms in the sauce, and I will eat canned mushrooms in anything. I love her chili, and her casseroles with the cream of mushroom soup in them. I love her macaroni and cheese, the good kind with the catsup and Worcestershire sauce in it, and the weird kind with the soft noodles and the clumps of congealed egg. I love her stir-fries, and her pot roast, and her pork chops with gravy. I am always hungry when suppertime comes, and I will always eat at least one big serving of whatever Mama’s cooked. Sometimes I eat two. I don’t mind if there are leftovers, because that just means I get two chances at whatever good thing I had for supper that night. Some things are even better when they’re crusty at the edges from being reheated.
And then one day when I’m in the Fourth Grade, I find out that I’m fat. Mama says that she’s been thinking about going on a diet. She says she thinks I should go on it with her, because of me being fat. I start crying. I yell “I don’t want to be fat!” and I run to my room. But when I come back out, I agree to go on the diet with Mama.
At first, dieting is kind of fun. I can eat all the cabbage or cauliflower that I want, and I love cabbage and cauliflower. There are interesting new rules to follow, and two new books to read. Mama buys the first one, which is called the Diet Watchers Guide.
The Diet Watcher’s Guide is full of interesting stories about people who became happy when they lost all their ugly fat. It’s got interesting recipes for making things I never even thought of trying before like pancakes with apples in them, and milkshakes made with fruit instead of ice cream. I read it through lots of times. Sometimes if we have the ingredients, I try the recipes in it. Other times, I read it just for the stories. For Christmas that year, I get Mama the Diet Watchers New International Cookbook. It’s a present for her, but I also get it because I want to read it. I like reading recipes, and people talking about food.
But it isn’t long before I discover that dieting isn’t very much fun. There’s all these strict rules about what you can and can’t eat. You can’t eat watermelon, for instance. How does that even make sense? Watermelon’s a fruit. Isn’t fruit good for you? Also, you can’t eat more than half a cup of cherries or grapes per week, or more than one piece of corn on the cob. What you can eat, is a lot of boring things like tuna, and bean sprouts, and skim milk that Mama makes out of powder, and always gets spoiled and disgusting-tasting before we run out of it.
For supper, we don’t eat normal stuff like Daddy and my sisters any more. Mama makes us special “dieters’ recipes”. She makes us creamed tuna on toast with powdered skim milk (and I go back and gobble all the leftovers from the normal version made with cream of mushroom soup after dinner, when I’m supposed to be washing the dishes). She makes us chili with tuna (!) and bean sprouts (!), and spaghetti with squash (Squash!) under the sauce where the others get noodles. Mama buys a horrible kind of fish called “turbot”, with this creepy layer of fishy-tasting fat on top. She doesn’t give it to anyone else in the family, but we dieters have to eat it. She buys this ground tuna that’s mushy, and tastes like cat food, and we have to finish every can, because dieters are supposed to eat 6 fish-meals a week.
I am not a good eater any more. All the things I want to eat are off-limits. Or I only get a little taste of them, just enough to make me want more, so I’m never satisfied when I finish. I fantasize about eating normal food like the other members of the family. I watch Daddy and my sisters eat all they want to of mashed potatoes and gravy, and tortilla casserole, and real chili, with beans, and tortillas on the side. I look down at my broiled fish or my creamed tuna and I feel angry. I feel bitter, and what I don’t feel is satisfied.
When no one else is in the kitchen, I sneak bites out of the rest of the family’s leftovers. I learn to like the taste of cold mashed potatoes, and gravy with a film of congealed fat on the top. I pick the little bits of bacon off the paper towels that Daddy drained it on. I chew bites off the T-bones from Robin and Beth’s steaks, before I give the bones to the cats. I eat things I turned my nose up at before, like meat fat and big slimy pieces of cold onion.
I can never steal enough leftovers to satisfy myself, so I steal other things too. I eat globs of straight butter out of the dish that’s kept for Daddy (he won’t eat margarine). I steal spoonfuls of sugar out of the bowl, and fingerfuls of jam out of the jar. I eat Linda and Karen’s sugared cereal and Hershey’s Instant, and Daddy’s chocolate chip ice cream. I learn how to chew and swallow quickly in case someone comes into the kitchen. If anyone notices that something’s missing, I lie about it.
I’m hungry all the time, but I don’t eat because I am hungry. I eat because there’s food around. When I see good leftovers, I grab some. When there’s birthday cake, I snitch tastes of the frosting, and cut off little slivers that won’t be missed. Diet Watchers gives me lots of rules for eating boring, disgusting food, but it doesn’t tell me much about what to do with good food. And it’s not like I can just ask for some at suppertime when I am hungry. I’m not allowed this stuff. I’m on a diet.
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