Queers at the Table: An Illustrated Guide to Queer Food (with Recipes)

(Paperback)

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An anthology of essays, comics, and recipes that reveals the dynamic and transformative relationship between queerness and food.

Food has long played an important role in queer culture. Lesbian- and queer women-run feminist restaurants, cafes, and coffeehouses have been safe spaces for queer and trans folk where gender norms can be challenged and where female authority is legitimised. During the AIDS epidemic, gay men and their allies centered food as an expression of collective care for those who needed it most. And queer and trans folk have asserted themselves in a restaurant culture largely controlled by white cisgender men.

Queers at the Table celebrates the various intersections between queers and food. In its essays, comics, and recipes, the book shows how queer food fosters connections, defies norms, honours legacies, and creates community. Taylor Hartson and Tristian Lee write about a queer farming community in which queerness is part of a broad network of living things to be enjoyed and shared; Danielle Kydd writes about food security issues as faced by LGBTQ2S+ folk; and Blue Delliquanti's comic on urban foraging in Minneapolis demonstrates the role of a queer friend group in a local ecosystem.

In full colour throughout, Queers at the Table is a diverse and enriching anthology that reveals the myriad nurturing ways that queerness informs food production and restaurant culture and how food empowers, transforms, and unites queer and trans folk.

Reviews

"Queers at the Table is a stunning interdisciplinary ode to the possibilities food holds for community creation and self-definition. It is the kind of anthology that will be passed around, taught, and referenced for years thanks to its inventiveness, breadth, and evergreen storytelling."
--Alicia Kennedy, food and culture writer and author of No Meat Required

"I kept sneaking away from work to read more and more of this book because it kept giving me such hits of pure pleasure. What a joy to witness these fascinating artists and writers exploring everything from the nut loaves served at lesbian festivals (!) to how the endless magic of seed saving relates to expansive ideas about gender. An invaluable collection"
--Lagusta Yearwood, founder of Lagusta's Luscious and author of Sweet + Salty

"Thinking about queer modes of production, cooking, and eating encourages us to question established norms and received wisdom about what food is and what it can do to us and for us as individuals and members of society. The essays, comics, and recipes in this collection invite us to explore absences and negative spaces to outline all that may have been hidden or erased: fear and resistance, chosen families and inclusive communities, concealed identities and overt defiance."
--Fabio Parasecoli, author of Gastronativisms: Food, Identity, Politics and professor of Food Studies at NYU

"Queers at the Table is a collaborative celebration of queer culinary culture and an evocative collection showcasing richly varied interpretations on the theme."
--Sandor Ellix Katz, author of Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation

"Alex D. Ketchum and Megan J. Elias have corralled some of our most vibrant voices to deliver a sparkling ode to the queer experience and food's place in it. Queers at the Table will delight, surprise, and move you."
--Mayukh Sen, author of Taste Makers

"What is queer food Just like our community, it resists definition. In this loving, thoughtful anthology, queer food is educational and erotic. It is sweet potato cake, bistek with tallarin verde, and nutritional yeast-dusted popcorn. It is a historical absence we honour through our imaginations. It is the food we cook to heal ourselves, and the food we cook for the people we love."
--Jonathan Kauffman, author of Hippie Food

Author Bio

Alex D. Ketchum (she/her) is an assistant professor at the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies of McGill University. She is the author of several books, including Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses (Concordia University Press). She lives in Montreal, Quebec.

Megan J. Elias (they/them) is director of the Food Studies Program at Boston University and an associate professor. They are the author of five books about food history, including Food on the Page: Cookbooks and American Culture (University of Pennsylvania Press). Elias teaches courses in food history and food and gender and lives in Brooklyn, New York.