I feel a bit robbed--I got this out as an audiobook from the search terms "food memoir", which it totally is in one sense of the word, but no one looking for a food memoir exclusively would have been happy about this as an example.
This is a memoir about Rabia Chaudry's life, both in and out of Pakistan, and food is very important to her, so there is an awful lot of descriptions of traditional Pakistani food as well as a few lessons on the various cultures that make up the country's fabric.
It opens with how she became a plus sized adult--her family returned to Pakistan for their first visit since moving to the United States, two-year-old Rabia was more than just a pudgy toddler. Dada Abu, her fit and sprightly grandfather, attempted to pick her up but had to put her straight back down, demanding of Chaudry’s mother: “What have you done to her?” The answer was two full bottles of half-and-half per day, frozen butter sticks to gnaw on, and lots and lots of American processed foods.
The saga continues in this vein--it is at once a love letter (with recipes) to fresh roti, chaat, chicken biryani, ghee, pakoras, shorba, parathay, and an often hilarious dissection of life in a Muslim immigrant family, Fatty Fatty Boom Boom is also a searingly honest portrait of a woman grappling with a body that gets the job done but that refuses to meet the expectations of others.
Her tale of how she tries to reverse that is filled with myths and legends and all the wrong ways to go about it, but throughout it rings true. It is also entertaining and vulnerable and while it was not what I was looking for, I enjoyed it.
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