Hunger

Gay has found joy in cooking and nourishing herself through the cooking show Barefoot Contessa. The show’s host, Ina Garten, embodies the idea “that a woman can be plump and pleasant and absolutely in love with food” (217). The show helped Gay develop a healthier relationship with food, with baking in particular being a tool for developing stronger self-confidence. However, food also regularly reminds her about “my body, my lack of willpower, and my biggest flaws” (226).

Gay also links food to her complex relationship with her family. Though others assume there must be cultural significance behind Gay’s pick of Haitian recipes, “[Haitian macaroni and cheese], and most other Haitian foods, are tied up in my love for my family and a quiet, unshakable anger” (229). She feels like an outsider among her “thin, stylish, attractive” (232) family, around whom she is unable to enjoy food because eating brings judgment. When she visits her parents, her hunger is noticeable as they do not indulge nor keep snacks at home. During these visits, Gay deprives herself, giving her family the impression that she is attempting weight loss, and thus less of a “problem” for her relations.

Gay came out to her family at 19 and was involved in a series of troubled relationships shaped by her trauma. Though attracted to both men and women, she gravitated toward women because she feared men: “I told myself I could be gay and I wouldn’t be hurt ever again” (237). When involved in romantic relationships, she denied herself sexual desire and “gave” her body “to whoever offered me even the faintest of interest. This was all I deserved, I told myself” (241). Gay’s lack of self-esteem led her to partners who were critical and emotionally abusive. She did not feel entitled to better, and her unfulfilling relationships only heightened her loneliness. Even in the company of kind partners and friends, she had difficulty accepting their feelings as genuine.

Gay’s size also elicits others to “erase” her identity as a woman: “I am often mistaken for a man” (256). This erasure is heightened by her race, as “Black women are rarely allowed their femininity” (256). Yet for many years, Gay deliberately made herself appear more masculine because if she looked too feminine, she would “invite trouble and danger and hurt” (256).

Writing provided Gay with an anonymity that made her weight irrelevant—but as her career accelerated and she gained national recognition, the barrier she enjoyed evaporated. She goes on book tours and participates in public speaking events; when she was photographed for the New York Times (after becoming a contributing opinion writer), she “knew I would be mocked, demeaned and degraded simply for existing” (263). She is sometimes met with disbelief when arriving at public events, these reactions telling of how many regard fat people with scorn. When people dislike Gay’s ideas, they resort to using her fatness as an insult. Her accomplishments are of no relevance to those for whom her size will always be her identity.

Gay has changed a great deal since her difficult twenties. She learned to be kinder to herself, yet her hunger, her need, her “intensity of want” remains (270).