Fatty Fatty Boom Boom
A Memoir of Food, Fat, and Family
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
“A delicious and mouthwatering book about food and family, the complicated love for both, and how that shapes us into who we are . . . I absolutely loved it!” —Valerie Bertinelli
Rabia Chaudry—known from the podcast Serial and her bestselling book, Adnan’s Story, as well as her own wildly popular podcast, Undisclosed—serves up a candid and intimate memoir about food, body image, and growing up in a tight knit but sometimes overly concerned Pakistani immigrant family.
“My entire life I have been less fat and more fat, but never not fat.” Rabia Chaudry was raised with a lot of love—and that love looked like food. Delicious Pakistani dishes—fresh roti, chaat, pakoras, and shorba—and also Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen, and an abundance of American processed foods, as her family discovered its adopted country through its (fast) food.
At the same time, her family was becoming increasingly alarmed about their chubby daughter’s future. Most important, how would she ever get married? In Fatty Fatty Boom Boom, Chaudry chronicles the dozens of times she tried and failed to achieve what she was told was her ideal weight. The truth is, though, she always loved food too much to hold a grudge against it.
At once an ode to Pakistani cuisine, including Chaudry’s favorite recipes; a love letter to her Muslim family both here and in Lahore; and a courageously honest portrait of a woman grappling with a body that gets the job done but refuses to meet the expectations of others. For anyone who has ever been weighed down by their weight— whatever it is—Chaudry shows us how freeing it is to finally make peace with body we have.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
“Fatty Fatty Boom Boom is a love letter, in some respects, to cuisine. It’s about Rabia Chaudry’s weight and her struggles with it—a Muslim woman from Pakistan making her way,” says George Stroumboulopoulos about his latest book club pick. “The reason we selected this book? Crucially, I think it’s going to really impact the way you see yourself and impact the way you see others around you as well.” It’s hard enough handling body image issues in one culture, let alone two very different ones. Chaudry’s poignant, funny memoir details her experiences negotiating intercontinental expectations about the female form. As a child in Pakistan, she had no particular issues with food. But after her family emigrated to America—and embraced their new home’s fast-food habits along with their overscheduled lives—her weight increased and her self-esteem plummeted, to the point that she jumped into a toxic, abusive marriage as a young adult. We loved how Chaudry explores the meaning and impact of what she and the people around her choose to eat, creating a wry and compassionate portrait of family life. We were especially inspired by her re-embrace of Pakistani cuisine (complete with a bonus recipe section) and her return to a less-disordered way of enjoying food. By looking at food choices through a cultural and personal lens, Chaudry makes us think about self-image in a fascinating new light.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chaudry, cohost of the Undisclosed podcast, celebrates and complicates food and culture with this engrossing account of how both shaped her. Born in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1974, and raised in the U.S. by Muslim immigrant parents, Chaudry was subject to myths of American nutritional supremacy that favored processed foods, as well as baby formula over breast milk. "The abundance of America strained at our skin and clothing," writes Chaudry, "and our relatives were torn between embarrassment... and mild jealousy." Internalizing her Pakistani family's comments that her weight made her undesirable, Rabia married an abusive man and suffered years of disordered eating. A trip to Pakistan, where she eats naan pakora ("a big fluffy carb stuffed with deep fried carbs") and spends time with relatives who support rather than shame her, becomes a turning point. As she traces her path toward a healthier relationship with food, Chaudry refreshingly eschews conventional narratives about weight loss, as well as fat acceptance ("Don't make me feel terrible... for not being able to feel great no matter what," she says to internet scolds), concluding, "I will never deprive myself of the joy of food." That joy is contagious in descriptions of Pakistani street burgers, the rainbow hues of Punjabi daal, and 50 pages worth of delectable recipes. Victory is sweet and savory in this ebullient tale of self-acceptance.
