However delicious food is, it comes with one significant downside for some of us, namely weight gain. The anxiety about eating – and putting on weight – is one usually (though not exclusively) experienced more by women than men, as a result of the societal pressures placed on women to maintain a particular body weight and shape.
Interestingly, I can’t think of any literature prior to the 20th century where characters – whether male or female – express any anxiety about the effect that eating food will have on their weight or body shape. Whilst I did write in a previous post about characters refusing to eat, when Catherine Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights or Jane Fairfax in Emma deny themselves food, it is not with the stated purpose of losing weight to become more attractive, but rather out of emotional distress, to punish themselves and others.
However, the anxiety about eating and the fear of gaining weight is more marked in recent literature, particular in the genre known as ‘chick lit‘ which was popular in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The term term has – thankfully – gone out of use nowadays, being problematic both because of the sexism of the term ‘chick’ and also because of the implication that what women read is lightweight and insubstantial (as the novels categorised as ‘chick lit’ tended to focus on relationships, female friendships and workplace dramas).
Probably the best known example of ‘chick lit’ is Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, first published in 1996 and made into an extremely successful 2001 film starring Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant. The novel, which well-read readers will recognise as having a number of parallels with Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (underlining the fact that ‘chick lit’ is not necessarily the vapid literary genre it has been made out to be), is written in the form of the protagonist’s – Bridget Jones – personal diary, chronicling the ups and downs of her romantic and professional life in the course of a year. But it also chronicles the ups and downs of her attempts to live healthily and limit her calorie intake. Many diary entries begin with a summary of her weight and her alcohol, cigarette and calorie consumption. For example 3rd January opens with:
9st 4 (terrifying slide into obesity – why? why?), alcohol units 6 (excellent), cigarettes 23 (v.g.), calories 2472.
Whilst the endless listing of personal failures (and the occasional success) creates humour – coupled with the fact that 9 stone 4 (or 58kg) is far from obese – it does also highlight the way many women feel pressured by society to attain a perfect body shape and weight through reducing their food intake.
In a similar vein, but published over 30 years earlier in 1963, long before the emergence of the phrase ‘chick lit’, is Muriel Spark’s The Girls of Slender Means. Set in post-war London, between VE (Victory in Europe) Day – 8th May 1945 – and VJ (Victory in Japan) Day – 2nd September 1945 – the novel centres around a group of unmarried women living in ‘The May of Teck Club’, a fictional institution in Kensington, West London, established for ‘the Pecuniary Convenience and Social Protection of Ladies of Slender Means below the age of Thirty years, who are obliged to reside apart from their Families in order to follow an Occupation in London.’ The novel follows the women’s lives and, in some cases loves, over the four month period, whilst also being framed by a narrative set in 1963 reporting the martyrdom in Haiti of Nicholas Farringdon, one of the frequent male visitors to the ‘club’ in 1945 who had subsequently gone to Haiti as a missionary.
The reader may initially assume Nicholas’s killing, which is mentioned in the first few pages, to be the main point of the novel, but they are wrongfooted when another, arguably more tragic event, happens towards the end of the book. These two episodes provide a dark counterpoint to the light quirkiness of the central 1945 narrative about the women’s lives.
The ‘girls of slender means’ occupy a range of middle-class professions – publishing assistant, elocution teacher, secretary – but all share similar concerns: how to survive on the meagre post-war rations, fashion (they share one designer dress – the Schiaparelli – between them, taking it in turns to wear it as the occasion arises), men and having a good figure. The latter comes in handy if they want to get onto the roof of the club, which can only be accessed via the lavatory window, the opening of which is ‘seven inches wide by fourteen inches long‘ , thus necessitating slender proportions. Only two of the girls – Selina and Anne – can get through the window, the latter only managing it naked and covered in margarine (I said it was a quirky read!).
The concern about the female figure is also, as with Bridget Jones’s Diary, translated into a fixation with the calorie count of food, as illustrated in the following conversation:
[Jane] added, “Cheese pie for supper tonight, guess how many calories?”
The answer, when they looked up the chart, was roughly 350 calories. “Followed by stewed cherries,” said Jane, “94 calories normal helping unless sweetened by saccharine, in which case 64 calories. We’ve had over a thousand calories today already . It’s always the same on Sundays.”
Well, cheese pie might have 350 calories, but it is delicious. I remember making it in my teenage years, so my memories of how I made it then, coupled with a bit of internet research, led to this recipe which had wonderful results (I would sacrifice being able to squeeze through a lavatory window to eat it!).
CALORIFIC CHEESE PIE
Ingredients: (makes a small pie to serve 3-4)
For the shortcrust pastry:
100g plain flour
50g unsalted butter
Pinch salt
For the filling:
1 large onion or 2 small ones, finely sliced
1 large egg (and 1 small or medium egg to glaze the pie)
200g cheddar grated
Method:
Begin by making the pastry. Place the flour and pinch of salt into a bowl, then rub in the butter using your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Gradually add a small amount of cold water, using a knife to bring together the mixture into a ball. Wrap the dough in foil or clingfilm and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Whilst the dough is resting, you can get on with the pie mixture. Heat a knob of butter in a frying pan and then cook the onions over a gentle heat, stirring frequently, for 10-15 minutes until they soften. Leave to cool slightly. Mix in the grated cheese and beaten egg, and stir to combine.
Remove the rested pastry dough from the fridge and preheat the oven to 180C / 160C fan / Gas mark 4. Grease a 20cm diameter tart tin. Lightly flour your working surface and then roll out the dough thinly and line the case, trimming off the excess pastry. Bring all the pastry cuttings together into a ball.
Fill the uncooked pastry case with the cheese and onion mixture. Roll out the remaining pastry dough into a rough rectangle shape, about 20cm long. Using a sharp knife, cut the pastry into long thin strips, approximately 1cm in width, but in varied lengths (only the strip going across the centre of the pie will need to be 20cm long). Wet the ends of each strip with a dampened pastry brush, and place 5 or 6 vertically across the top of the pie, trying to space them fairly regularly. Then place another 5 or 6 horizontally, thereby creating a lattice pattern. Beat the small egg, and use the pastry brush to brush it over all the lattice strips and the outer edges of the pastry crust. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes until the pastry is golden brown. Remove the pie from the oven and leave to cool for about 10 minutes before serving with your choice of sides.
