I first began to understand my true calling as I spread myself out on a friend’s couch, trying to figure which of the seven deadly sins I best personified. We had just gotten back from an enormous Tibetan meal, all momos (savory dumplings) and chai tea, and were having one of those desultory conversations that late nights and too much food often inspire. All the eating had clogged up my mental pro-cesses, so it took me longer than usual to state the obvious. "

Gluttony! Of course! I just ate all those damn momos!" With this, I discreetly let my belly out.

I was quite happy to think of myself as a poster child for gluttony. In the years since, it’s an identity I’ve come to embrace––no easy feat, considering the many obstacles that lie in the path of a woman searching for her inner pig.

One obstacle is the old adage that a woman should never be seen eating in public. She can peck, she can nibble, she can disinterestedly and elegantly nudge her food around her plate, but she should never masti-cate, ingest, consume. Take Scarlett O’Hara. Despite a radish-gnawing determination to survive, and steely pronouncements that tomorrow is another day, when her long-suffering Mammy encourages her to eat before a party so she won’t scandalize the guests by gobbling like a hog, the mighty Scarlett pouts but eventually capitulates to better her chances of getting a man.

And the "don’t eat in front of boys" trick is still going strong. Witness the lovely woman next to you, delicately rearranging her Caesar salad while her male dining companion scarfs a plate of ribs. I have often thought, when I see a salad fiddler, that I would like to order a steak, fall into it face first, and gnaw it like a dog just to rile someone.

Chocolate: A Woman Thing
Chocolate is the exception to the rule. Women are supposed to have an irrational, uncontrollable craving for chocolate. It’s a woman thing, right? I’ve heard women talk about chocolate in hushed, reverent tones, in whispers barely concealing the dripping lust chocolate inspires, in the strung-out voice of the junkie. With archly raised eyebrows, chocolate lovers have in-formed me, "You know, chocolate stimulates the same part of the brain that sex is supposed to." This is all well and good, but these sexual overtones lead me to think that loving chocolate is not such a revolutionary action. Chocolate has become the cultural pacifier for a woman’s libido. Horny? Have a Hershey. Because a woman’s sexual desire is even more threatening than her gluttony.

Geopolitics Enters the Kitchen
The pursuit of gluttony is even harder for a woman of color. Just as much as our supposed sexual prowess has been the source of endless speculation and exotification, so has our culinary ability. Observe Like Water for Chocolate––with all its magical realism and crushed roses about one Latina woman’s repressed feelings manifesting themselves in her food. The late ’90s brought us the re-geisha-fication of all things Asian, so it is only apt that one of the most eye-catching Asian American works of that decade was called Eating Chinese Food Naked
––a title that nicely combines the Asian food obsession with the Asian hottie obsession. But sometimes a woman doesn’t want to dispense culinary Viagra with the food she makes, nor does she want to make the best damn dumplings in the mah-jongg club à la The Joy Luck Club. Sometimes a gal just wants to eat, and none of these movies revel in that. They glorify the woman cook as homey provider, nurturer, lover-by-way-of-food; but she needs no physical, spiritual, mental, or emotional sustenance of her own. It is wonderful to see the "women’s work" of cooking elevated to such heights––but wouldn’t you also want to see the cook lay aside her cutting board and be fed, herself?