Today Virginia is chatting with Helen Rosner. 

Helen is a staff writer at The New Yorker. She has been covering food for more than a decade as a writer and editor, and won a 2024 James Beard Award for her weekly restaurant-review column, The Food Scene. She is an expert on sandwiches and many other important subjects. 

And I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with Helen last month at Books Are Magic in Brooklyn (hi Emma Straub thank you so much for having us!!), at a live event to celebrate the paperback release of Fat Talk. (They should still have a few signed copies in stock if you need one!)

We talked about the book, of course, but we talked about so many other fat- and food-adjacent topics, that I knew I wanted to bring it to you as a podcast episode.

(Bear with some imperfect audio, since we weren’t recording with our usual set-up — but Tommy worked his magic as usual so it’s still highly listen-to-able!)

If you find today’s episode valuable, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription!

Guest interviews are always free on Burnt Toast, but paid subscriptions enable us to pay guests for their time, labor and expertise. (This is extremely rare in the world of podcasting, but key to centering marginalized voices!)

To tell us YOUR thoughts, and to get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.

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Disclaimer: You’re listening to this episode because you value my input as a journalist who reports on these issues and therefore has a lot of informed opinions. Neither my guest today nor I are healthcare providers, and this conversation is not meant to substitute for medical or therapeutic advice.

FAT TALK is out in paperback! Order your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. You can also order the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.

CREDITS

The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Follow Virginia on Instagram, Follow Corinne  @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing and subscribe to Big Undies.

Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism. 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!

I’m Virginia Sole-Smith, and today my guest is the great Helen Rosner.

Helen is a staff writer at The New Yorker. She has been covering food for more than a decade as a writer and editor, and won a 2024 James Beard Award for her weekly restaurant-review column, The Food Scene. She is an expert on sandwiches and many other important subjects.

And I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with Helen last month at Books Are Magic in Brooklyn (hi Emma Straub thank you so much for having us!!), at a live event to celebrate the paperback release ofFat Talk. (They should still havea few signed copies in stock if you need one!)

We talked about the book, of course, but we talked about so many other fat- and food-adjacent topics, that I knew I wanted to bring it to you as a podcast episode.

(Bear with some imperfect audio, since we weren’t recording with our usual set-up — but Tommy worked his magic as usual so it’s still highly listen-to-able!)

Guest interviews are always free on Burnt Toast, but paid subscriptions enable us to pay guests for their time, labor and expertise. (This is extremely rare in the world of podcasting, but key to centering marginalized voices!)

This episode contains affiliate links. Shopping our links is a great way to support Burnt Toast! You’ll find all of the links aggregated here.

Episode 180 Transcript

Thank you Kim Baldwin for this cute pic of the livestream!

Helen

I was telling Virginia backstage—and this is true—I read a lot, but I'm a really bad nonfiction reader. I tend to feel like nonfiction books—I shouldn't say this in a bookstore, all nonfiction books are great. You should buy all of them. But I think there's a tendency for nonfiction books to have one really, really good idea and then say it over and over again for 300 pages. It’s like, this could have been a tweet. But I read every single page of this book in total joy. Actually, a lot of it was anger, but it flew by. It is such a great book. It’s funny and smart and so rigorous and has exactly the right kind of anger that is also transmuted into exhortation and action, and it made me feel really good about myself and hopeful by the end. I think that’s the best thing any book can do.

Virginia

Where were you when we were getting blurbs? Because that was amazing. Thank you so much. That really means a lot.

Helen

It’s really exciting for me to be talking to you about this. I’m a newish parent. I don’t know at what point I just call myself a parent instead of a new parent? I have a two year old.

Virginia

I think you’re getting there.

Helen

But this came out right on time for me. Shortly after my daughter was born this was sitting in my stack of prominently placed books in my living room, and my mother was visiting. She just sort of touched it and looked at it. It was like watching a deer approach—

Virginia

Don’t look at it. Don’t look at it.

Helen

Don’t look right at it. My mom, who was born in 1952 and who eats four almonds as a snack, literally. And it happened! Like, it happened. This is a great book, but it is also such a good passive aggressive prop.

Virginia

I really thought about that a lot in my cover design. How will this look on people’s coffee tables when their moms come over? And I think it’s eye catching with the yellow so you want to pick it up, but then you see “fat,” and you’re like, oh my God, what’s happening.

It brings up a lot for the moms. But I’ve heard this story a