What is queer food? : how we served a revolution / John Birdsall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Birdsall, John, 1959- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Food--Social aspects--United States--History.

Food.

Cooking--United States--History.

Cooking.

Sexual minorities--United States--History.

Sexual minorities.

Sexual minorities--United States--Social life and customs.

Gay people--United States--Identity.

Gay people.

Food writing.

LGBTQ+ history.

Gay history.

Sexual identity.

LGBTQ+ people.

Physical Description:

xi, 292 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : W. W. Norton & Company, [2025]

Summary:

"A celebrated culinary writer's expansive, audacious excavation of the roots of modern queer identity and food culture. The food on our plates has long been designed, twisted, and elevated by queer hands. Piecing together a dazzling mosaic of queer lives, spaces, and meals, beloved food writer John Birdsall unfolds the complex story of how, through times of fear and persecution, queer people used food to express joy and build community--and ended up changing the shape of the table for everyone. Tracing the evolution of queer food from the early decades of the twentieth century through the LGBTQ civil rights movement of post-Stonewall liberation and the devastation of AIDS, Birdsall fills the gaps between past and present. He channels the twin forces of criticism and cultural history to propel readers into the kitchens, restaurants, swirling party houses, and buzzing 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, as Birdsall brilliantly reveals, is quiche and Champagne eleganza at Sunday brunch and joyous lesbian potlucks in the bunker world of Cold War homophobic purges. It's paper chicken for the gender-rebel divas of Chinese opera in San Francisco, Richard Olney's ecstatic salade composée, 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. With cinematic verve and delicious prose, What Is Queer Food? is a monumental work: a testament to food's essential link to modern queerness that reveals how, like fashion or pop music, cooking and eating have become a crucial language of LGBTQ+ identity. By reframing our understanding of both food and queerness, it opens the door for courageous reckoning and boundless conversation"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Prologue: The road to Hudson

Part one: The taste of what we could not say, 1896-1948. The language of cake, part one ; Maddalena's pigeons ; Vile fugitive ; Redemption fudge ; Nights at the Mandarin ; Baked in the bedroom ; The sissy prophet of asparagus ; Paper chicken for divas ; The loneliness of rhubarb ; Book of secrets ; "The man among women" ; Ingredient X

Part two: Tables under a partial sky, 1948-1961. Hungry in Paris ; The shape of Bohemia ; The banquette revolution ; Richard tells the truth ; The salvage queen of Fifty-Eighth Street ; The queer education of Miss Lewis ; Soufflés in soup cups ; Brother Ha of Pell Street ; Saturday night function ; Up the goat path

Part three: Cooking in code, 1946-1973. Gen and Lou ; Pleasure en français ; When cookbooks lie ; Farewell to Fire Island ; Strangling the doves ; An edible for Saint Teresa ; Canned camp ; Les chef bros ; The unknown bed

Part four: The rich, audacious tang of liberation, 1973-1986. Richard's dirty salad ; The welcome table ; Learning to cook from Mother ; Fress, darling ; Truman serves lunch ; A fractured timeline of quiche ; A culinary extravaganza ; Ernie and the rainbow cake ; Monday nights at Zuni ; Open house

Epilogue: The queerest food

Acknowledgments

Notes

Sources

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-279) and index.

ISBN:

9781324073796

1324073799

OCLC:

1455397855

Publisher Number:

90102106239