As for those grapefruit and buttermilk diets, I'll take roast

In the age when appearances began to rule hearts and screens alike, Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Academy Award, spoke with the voice of the earth itself when she said, “As for those grapefruit and buttermilk diets, I’ll take roast chicken and dumplings.” At first, her words may sound playful, even defiant. But beneath them lies a profound wisdom — the wisdom of one who has known hunger, labor, and the illusion of perfection. McDaniel was not merely rejecting fad diets; she was affirming the joy of authenticity, the power of living true to one’s roots and one’s soul.

Her words rise like a hymn against the tyranny of shallow ideals. The grapefruit and buttermilk diets were emblems of a time — and a society — obsessed with appearances, with shrinking the self to fit within narrow molds. But McDaniel, born of former slaves, raised in hardship, and rising to the shining halls of Hollywood, knew that strength and beauty come from nourishment, not denial. To her, roast chicken and dumplings were not just food — they were symbols of home, heritage, and abundance, reminders that one’s worth is not measured by the size of one’s waist, but by the richness of one’s spirit.

Let us remember that McDaniel lived in a world that demanded she become less — less visible, less vocal, less proud. Yet she refused to starve her soul to fit the appetite of others. Like the warriors of old who chose fire over surrender, she chose fullness over emptiness, sustenance over illusion. Her defiance was not gluttony — it was a declaration of dignity. For what is life, if we strip it of the pleasures that sustain our joy, the foods that carry our memories, the laughter that fills our table?

In this, we find the echo of another story — that of Diogenes the Cynic, who lived in simplicity and mocked the false splendor of the rich. When Alexander the Great offered him anything he desired, Diogenes replied only, “Stand out of my sunlight.” Like Hattie McDaniel, he understood that freedom lies in rejecting what others say you must desire. To McDaniel, a roast chicken was not mere indulgence — it was a sunbeam of freedom, a taste of her own choosing, a rebellion served warm with dumplings and pride.

Her words also teach us to honor our cultural inheritance. The food she names — hearty, comforting, born of Southern kitchens — carries the spirit of generations who survived through flavor when the world gave them so little else. To reject those foods would have been to deny the story of her people, the love of mothers and grandmothers who cooked to keep hope alive. When she said she’d “take roast chicken and dumplings,” she was saying: I will not abandon who I am. Every bite was an act of remembrance, a living prayer to the ancestors.

So let the modern soul beware the glittering trap of self-denial. The ancients taught moderation, not misery. To live fully is not to consume without thought, but to honor the balance between body and spirit. Denial for vanity’s sake is but another form of slavery. But eating with gratitude, savoring what is real, is an act of reverence. The wise do not chase shadows of perfection — they feast upon the light of authenticity.

Therefore, the lesson of Hattie McDaniel’s words is this: Choose truth over pretense, sustenance over appearance, and gratitude over guilt. Let every meal be a small celebration of being alive. When the world demands that you shrink yourself — in body, in dream, in joy — answer as she did: “I’ll take roast chicken and dumplings.” For in that simple, defiant choice lives the soul of freedom, the taste of courage, and the flavor of a life truly lived.