Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir by Padma Lakshmi
A Review of Padma Lakshmi’s memoir Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir.
Love, Loss, and What We Ate by Padma Lakshmi (2013). Published by Ecco.
I very much did not know who Padma Lakshmi was, nor her famous ex-hubby, and so when I picked this book up as a download. I guess in a way that’s good, because I came in with a clean slate when it came to who she was as a person, with no bias from malicious television editing or random exposures from magazines, documentaries, or television shows. Heck, if you told me this was a famous person, from the opening of this book I thought she would’ve just been a model, not a food person.
That being said, after reading this memoir, I honestly wasn’t that impressed. I do come in with the bias that celebrity autobiographies tend to be very boring, but I will not apply the label vain to her. To be vain in general means that you’re probably going to be a good memoirist or nonfiction writer because you have to be vain in order to be constantly writing about yourself. And while this is Lakshmi’s life and I want to reserve judgment, it kind of sounds like she’s justifying a lot of things and glossing over details?
Let’s dig deeper into this book in the review, shall we?
Content / Writing
Well, this book surely gets to the juicy parts of Lakshmi’s life almost immediately. In the opening section, we get to hear about how she had an affair with a married man, one that ultimately ended up quite doomed (Spoiler: they ended up divorcing after about five years). He’s much richer and was financially supporting her throughout this time as she attempted to act and model for a living. She made it at the end of the day, but she glosses over the fact she had an affair and was extremely privileged. It is not relatable to describe flying all over the world with your hotshot husband while you’re basically unemployed. I get that she had to work hard to get where she is today, but the start of her career in this portion of her life really was supported by this much older man. And while she briefly mentions the guilt of being the cause of divorce and potentially traumatizing his young son, she never really speaks of that again.
We then also are introduced in the book blurb that her family is Brahmins. That’s the top of the caste system. That just adds another layer of privilege onto her story, because then they had access to education and certain resources lower castes may not have had.
I picked this up originally because I thought it would be a food memoir. And it is at times; we see little glimpses of South India and where Lakshmi grew up, of her heritage and ancestry in the food that she cooks. The Indian culture tidbits were what interested me because the rest of this book honestly came across as kind of self-touting and pompous.
The writing in this one honestly isn’t the greatest. She doesn’t follow a clear chronological arc and switches between past, present, and what would be the future in the moment of describing things. The prose itself is a bit clunky, and, at times, the food aspect of the memoir feels a bit forced. She also only dates older men, specifically extremely wealthy ones. That made me side-eye her bit, like good for her, but the connotation for many people reading that is she wants money and/or social status.
Overall Thoughts
I guess if you’re a fan of Padma’s this is worth picking up. To be honest, I don’t recommend buying a copy of this book, but instead, just check it out of the library. I’m glad I didn’t pay for it because it’s more of a one-time read. It briefly entertained me. It did its job. But I wasn’t too compelled with her life’s story and had to force myself to keep reading.
