On eating and growing tall
(22 May 2026)
If my beloved Elena Rybakina has any cousins, I’ve just walked past one. Her hair dyed red. Very tall too. Taller. When I passed her, I imagined her eating a lot and growing without limit. I left her behind on the pavement and she was still eating and growing taller and taller.
This has to do with a theory my friend A. put forward on the pavement terrace of our usual kebab shop.
Our friend S. was there too. He told A. and me that he had been diagnosed with fatty liver disease. He was put on such a depressing and counterintuitive diet that we ended up settling the matter by quoting Eugenio:
‘Fui al médico para que me quitara las ganas de fumar, y la verdad es que lo ha conseguido: ahora fumo sin ganas.’
(I went to the doctor to get rid of my desire to smoke, and he truly succeeded — now I smoke without desire.)
I didn’t say there what follows here now, but I thought about it. I think about it every time I hear that someone is forbidden to eat bread, or we are all advised against milk, or we are told good things about eggs one day and bad things the next.
My father worked in research and animal nutrition, so he would know something about human diet too.
His words on this subject, like any of his words, were able to reach me mostly through those of my mother. She was something of an angry evangelist of his.
In general, my mother used to speak of my father with a hint of pain and reproach, as if she held him responsible for his own death and the avoidable precariousness that preceded and followed it in the family he was responsible for.
One could even raise doubts about the love she had ever had for him, and draw conclusions regarding her feelings towards ‘The Bequest’ (La herencia) that he had left her — as she often used to call me, with a sarcasm of uncertain depth and meaning.
The truth is that she also had an admiration no less pronounced and evident. She allowed herself to be infected by the routine of crossing oneself before every long car trip.1 She would often quote my father’s quirks and advice as though she were bringing up the authority of God Himself come down from heaven.
With regard to diet and overall health, I was never told that my father had said any avant-garde extravagance — no trace of signature medicine, auteur nutrition on his part (nutricionismo de autor). The oddest, most unappetising thing he would ever have recommended was that one shouldn’t pour the liquid off the yogurt, but rather consume it (either directly, drinking it before the yogurt; or mixed with it), because that liquid was the whey! and was absolutely wholesome.
All four of my grandparents were already dead when I was born.
Yet, it is a common saying that grandmothers serve ridiculously large portions and tell their grandchildren:
‘Eat up, so you’ll grow tall!’
Our friend A. couldn’t agree more with this association.
As we were waiting for the waiter to bring our food, he explained to S. and me his theory that North Americans were that tall because they ate a lot. You had to eat a lot to grow tall: growth in width (diameter and circumference), health in mainstream medical terms, the variety and balance of the diet were all very secondary factors. The important thing was to eat a lot — like Americans. Their great height, according to A.’s theory, was decisively due to the fact that they had eaten a lot, and not so much to genetics or anything else.