A celebrated food writer’s expansive, audacious excavation of the development of modern queer identity and food culture.<\/b><\/p>\n
Food in America and Europe has long been shaped, twisted, and upended by queer creatives. Beloved food writer John Birdsall fills the gap between the past and present, channeling the twin forces of criticism and cultural history to propel listeners into the kitchens, restaurants, swirling party-houses, and humming interior lives of James Baldwin, Alice B. Toklas, Truman Capote, Esther Eng, and others who left an indelible mark on the culinary world from the margins. Queer food is brunch quiche \u00e0 la Craig Claiborne, Richard Olney’s ecstatic salade compos\u00e9e, and Rainbow Ice-Box Cake from Ernest Matthew Mickler’s White Trash Cooking. It’s the intention surrounding a meal, the circumstances behind it, the people gathered around the table.<\/p>\n
With cinematic verve and prose that dazzles,\u00a0What Is Queer Food?<\/i>\u00a0is a monumental work: a testament to food’s essential link to a modern queerness that reveals how, like fashion or tastes in music, food has become a language of LGBTQ+ identity.<\/p>\n