A friend gave my husband Rick Bayless’s Mexican Everyday cookbook for Christmas this year. We’ve both been big fans of the man since I first caught Mexico – One Plate at a Time on WTTW shortly after moving to Chicago. For my first birthday in Chicago, my husband and another friend took me to Frontera Grill, which was immeasurably delicious. Unfortunately, given the popularity of the restaurant and their no reservations policy, we’ve not been able to go back since but we eat at Frontera Fresca on the seventh floor of Macy’s once every couple of weeks. And sometimes if we’re lucky, as we were on the night we ate at Frontera Grill, we’ll see the man himself, smiling and just as weird and lovable in person as he appears on TV.
In the introduction to Mexican Everyday, Bayless talks a little bit about his philosophy of eating and health. Apparently a chubby kid who grew into a chubby adult, Bayless took up yoga as “a nice antidote to [his] fast-paced, late-night restaurant life.” Eventually he began to feel that the size of his body was interfering with the progress of his practice:
Which led me, in an uncharacteristically weak moment, to fleetingly consider the question, Is it possible for a person to sensibly get rid of extra weight without going on a diet?
Diets are something I’ve loudly railed against having seen too much hype, too many unrealistic expectations, too many failures. I oppose them on (as least) two grounds–one nutritional, the other social. Most diets, after all, restrict what the dieter eats in quantity or variety, or both. Unrealistic quantity restriction frequently provokes the fear-of-starvation backlash (aka gorging), and narrowed variety not only becomes unsustainably boring, but it can be nutritionally unbalanced, even dangerous–unless you’re treating a serious medical condition, which I’m not. Our species developed as omnivores, after all.
From a social perspective, diets can be isolating. I’d venture a guess that we’ve all known people who’ve used their diets as an excuse for not eating with family, no going out with friends and, in extreme but sadly frequent cases, not partaking in holiday feasts. Food may be the fuel for the body, but it’s also glue for the family, for the community.”
Amen, Rick Bayless. Amen.
As anyone who has seen the episode of Mexico – One Plate at a Time that opens with a shirtless Bayless repelling into an underground cave, he has certainly met his fitness goals (also demonstrated with a photo of him in the forearm balance pose, which I am here to tell my non-yogically inclined friends, is no freaking joke). His approach was to cut out what he called “empty calories” found in beverages, and listen to his body to determine exactly how much he needed to eat to stay at the weight that felt comfortable to him. He then took up weight training because that way he could eat more (no surprises, the man loves to eat) and also get up into that forearm balance.
My favorite part of his philosophy of food, though, is his celebration of feasting as concept and practice. After criticizing “bleak” diets “that lead us to judge everything we put in our mouths as ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ that cause us to say that a break with their dietary prescriptions is ‘cheating,'” Bayless questions our “blind faith in the wisdom of the relatively young field of modern nutrition” that has led us to discard the concept of feasting “into the same dustbin as malnutrition and poor sanitation.” As a result, “many of us just eat defiantly. Willy-nilly and all the time.” Basically:
[C]uisines that have healthily nourished generation after generation have a pretty brilliant–but basic–way of putting essential foods together in the right proportions for everyday eating. Call it their foundation dishes. Yet those same cultures also realize that feating is essential for a culture’s aesthetic development, encouraging cooks to reach for new culinary heights. And that feasting is essential for cultural unity, brining groups of people together around the table to share sustenance, culinary art, related history. And that feasting is essential for the health of our bodies, allowing us the satisfaction of feeling thoroughly, completely full–with no need for midnight Häagen-Dazs raids.
A feast can make our spirits soar for days, while our bodies are regenerating themselves on everyday fare. In other words, no one ever got fat on a weekly feast, but missing that feast can leave you with strong cravings (both physical and spiritual) all week long.
Who can resist a strong craving?
I am absolutely delighted with this concept: eating simply and healthily, listening to and responding to what your body wants and needs, and then regularly gathering together with your community, whether that’s family, friends, neighbors, or a combination thereof, to tear the roof off this sucker with a feast.
It’s resolution time. The gym is about to get wicked crowded. I’ll see a whole host of new faces at my yoga studio next week. Weight Watchers and its ilk are about to increase their membership numbers. I usually don’t bother with resolutions; even when I was in the thrall of all those bleak diets I would usually count among my resolutions a firm commitment to start smoking again, or to read less and watch more TV. But I feel a sense of joy and liberation in the idea of everyday food and feasting that I honestly haven’t felt about eating in years, maybe ever, or at least not since the first time I connected eating with guilt and shame. So this year, I resolve to relearn the joy of eating, to embrace the concept of feasting.
And while the odds of my getting up into a forearm balance are about level with the odds of my waking up one morning with a complete understanding of differential calculus, I might strive toward executing a decent upward-facing dog with minimal grunting and squeaking.
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December 30, 2007 at 7:01 pm
kateharding
I knew there was a reason I loved him. Other than the pork tacos al carbon.
The trick to Frontera is showing up at about 5:15 and standing in line until they open. Either that or being willing to drink margaritas and eat chips and salsa for an hour and a half before you get a table, which is my BFFs preferred m.o. I’m not a tequila fan, so I prefer the early route. But it IS possible, and oh so worthwhile.
December 30, 2007 at 8:22 pm
OTM
The night we went, the fellows employed your BFF’s method, hanging out at the bar while I finished my night class. I got there in time to have a hibiscus margarita (so good omg) and then we got our table.
We made Chicken in Tangle Escabeche of Caramelized Onions, Carrots, and Jalepenos and Gulf Coast-Style White Rice Pilaf from the cookbook. So delicious, but definitely more in the feast category than the everyday category – “everyday” for us tends to be soup and cheese toast or frozen pizza. I’m feeling the Red Chile Chicken with Rice and Black Beans for New Year’s dinner. Yum.
December 30, 2007 at 10:18 pm
stefanie
I too like the healthful food / exercise / intuitive eating approach. Not to rain on the parade, though – but to be fair, there are people (like me, ahem) who do those things, and are still fat. I’m at peace with being fat, personally – however, it’s not always possible to become not-fat with these approaches. On the whole I’d say it’s healthier. But not always “slimming.”
December 30, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Tari
I *knew* I liked Rick Bayless for more than the way he seems to be so in love with everything he does!
December 31, 2007 at 12:26 am
kateharding
Not to rain on the parade, though – but to be fair, there are people (like me, ahem) who do those things, and are still fat.
Without wanting to speak for Ottermatic, I’m going to, uh, speak for Ottermatic… and say I’m quite sure she’s aware of that and meant for it to be part of the larger point here. But if it didn’t come across in the post, it’s absolutely worth mentioning in comments.
December 31, 2007 at 12:27 am
kateharding
Also…
I’m feeling the Red Chile Chicken with Rice and Black Beans for New Year’s dinner. Yum.
Can I come over? :)
December 31, 2007 at 2:41 am
fillyjonk
I agree with him (surprise) except on the diet-as-isolationism tip… I think more people use diets as an easy, low-cost way of interacting socially with people. That’s what “diet talk” is about — people use their deprivation and self-loathing to make connections that they feel unable to make on their own.
December 31, 2007 at 4:40 am
Godless Heathen
I adore Rick Bayless, absolutely and completely. I was so crushed when my local PBS station yanked his cooking show in favor of a local chef. I haven’t had a chance to get any of his cookbooks yet, but that’s going to change the next time I’m out shopping.
I don’t know fj, while bonding over a shared culture of dieting is seen as a legitimate way for women to interact in our culture, it can be very hard to build a social life around. As Bayless said, it’s hard to share moments that might happen around or near food if you can’t partake of the food. So many people see not eating as a rejection of common social cues and a judgment upon their own social mores.
I’ve spent almost twenty years of my life in the southeastern US, where food and drink aren’t just offered as a sign of hospitality but as an expectation that you won’t repudiate that hospitality by not partaking. It’s beyond rude in that culture not to take the proffered glass of beverage or treat and nibble or sip politely. Dieting may be seen as virtuous, but food shared with friends and guests is supposed to be exempt from calorie counting. Being abstemious in a social setting makes you seem self-centered and cold. (Yes, I acknowledge that women can’t win, damned if you eat, damned if you don’t.)
December 31, 2007 at 7:05 am
OTM
Aye, stefanie, what Kate said. I should have made that more clear in the post – I’m personally not looking to be not-fat, just not quite so crazy, vis a vis food.*
fillyjonk, I thought about that and I think you’re right. Diet talk is on par with familiarity with the most recent celebrity gossip tripe or the last person to get kicked off of the reality show du jour for easy coworker-style conversation fodder. But I also think that, ultimately, diets are more socially isolating than not for the reasons that Godless Heathen articulated. Plus I definitely had “diet friends” with whom I would talk about mostly Weight Watchers, but with the exception of one woman who was my friend before WW and who is in “diet recovery” now, too, my “diet friendships” don’t last long. Just like “diet” food can’t sustain us, neither can low-cal, non-fat, sugar-free human relationships.
*Which, to be completely honest here, isn’t to say that I would decline magical pain and side-effect free not-fatness if some wish-granting faerie were to come flitting along with an offer BUT I would like to someday reach a point in my life where I am so happy with myself as is that I would decline such an offer, and I think achieving a healthy and happy relationship with food a la Mr. B is a good step in the right direction.
December 31, 2007 at 7:06 am
OTM
Oh – Godless Heathen, where in the southeast are you? I lived in Atlanta for a year and North Carolina for four prior to moving to Chicago 3.5 years ago.
December 31, 2007 at 7:11 am
OTM
Can I come over? :)
Yes!
December 31, 2007 at 8:36 am
Tari
damned if you eat, damned if you don’t
Dude, I want that on a tee shirt!
December 31, 2007 at 1:47 pm
fillyjonk
Just like “diet” food can’t sustain us, neither can low-cal, non-fat, sugar-free human relationships.
Oh, nicely put. I agree that they’re ultimately socially isolating, because you make lots of friends whom you can only talk to about diets (and eventually lose the ones who want to talk about something else), but I think people take it on in an attempt to be socially connected. It’s like a sugar rush — you get an instant boost of familiarity, which will eventually drop you, but if you don’t know how to nourish yourself you don’t even realize there are more sustaining options.
January 22, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Chris
OTM — Did you end up making that dish? We made it last night:
http://www.weheartfood.com/2008/01/arroz-rojo-con-pollo-y-frijoles-negros.html
We topped it with that chipotle tomatillo salsa, also from Everyday Mexican.
Delicioso!
January 23, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Ottermatic
We did make it, and it was wonderful! I just bought a jar of Frontera salsa, though, rather than make my own. It was far more “every day” that way. ;)
February 12, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Nevis
As someone who’s been watching “Mexico – One Plate at a Time” on PBS for years can tell you – Rick is a great guy. Very knowledgable, personable and definatly someone who’s “been there” and has a very sensible ideas on diet & exercise.