For the last 15 years I have been keeping track of John Birdsall’s work, ever since his iconic piece “America, Your Food Is So Gay” appeared in Lucky Peach. I am a big fan of food, I love eating, AND I am also queer. Not only that, but I am interested in learning about food, foodways, culture, and sexuality. One of the primary ways I experience other cultures is through food.
John went on to write a biography of James Beard, The Man Who Ate Too Much, which chronicles all the ways in which Beard went against stereotypes and cultural expectations for men to succeed in the food world. So much so that today there are awards in his name. If you want to know more about that irony, please read John’s work.
What is Queer Food is John’s most recent book. The title alone got me thinking: what IS queer food and more importantly, do I make queer food? He came to Seattle to talk about the book, and I asked him if there was a through line that connected the various people he profiles in the book: “hedonism.”
Hedonism. I paused. No, I balked. Hedonism means giving in fully to pleasure, elevating pleasure as the “sole or chief good in life1.” I am still a product of American Puritanical culture. I hate saying “it’s complicated” but … it IS complicated to disentangle what I want from what I’ve been told I should want.
I have chewed on this word as I considered how my sexuality informs how I make food. I realized it wasn’t specifically my sexuality and who I am attracted to, so much as how my sexuality is situated in opposition to the cultural norm. When I was growing up and coming of age in the 1980s, there were no mainstream media portrayals that reflected my attractions or desires. There were no roadmaps, no recipes, for a strange child like me. I had things I very clearly Did Not Like (shrimp, cilantro) and things I very clearly did (chopped liver, tongue). In this way, food was a bit clearer than sexuality.
This brings me to the title: cilantro and compulsory heterosexuality. In the ‘80s, when I was a teenager, cilantro appeared on the culinary scene. It was like glitter. It seemed to be everywhere. And everyone loved it. Except me. I detested it. I didn’t understand what was so appealing about it, in the same way that Adrienne Rich questions the hegemony of heterosexuality. Everyone was telling me it was so great, so I came to the conclusion there was something wrong with me.
Over time, I learned I don’t have to eat things I don’t like. My tastes don’t align with the mainstream. And let’s be honest, they never have. It’s okay, I tell my 12-year old self at the bus stop with her tongue sandwich tucked safely in her lunch tote. Mainstream culture intrudes noisily, always letting me know what is acceptable and what isn’t (tongue sandwiches do not make the cut). But subcultures do not care about the mainstream.
After I graduated from college, I moved to Seattle and almost instantly found a welcoming queer community. I was affirmed, and the subculture inverted many mainstream norms. There was a gay and lesbian country western bar where people could partner dance, usually with someone of the same gender. Since the pairs were not opposite sex, there was a “lead” and a “follow” instead of “man” and “woman”. It was not unusual to see a woman leading a man in a pair. Seeing these new formations and pairings showed me there wasn’t one way to do a thing. Here were people following their desire, enjoying themselves, and demonstrating new ways of being beyond proscribed roles.
Being queer for me is about listening deeply to what I want and honoring that. It means turning my attention inward and turning down the volume on societal demands in all realms of life.
Ten years ago my partner and I started doing a revolving dinner with two and then three other couples. Across our 8 friends were several dietary restrictions, but within that there was incredible freedom to see what we could come up with. I was used to creating for a vegan diet, but excluding gluten and nightshades (tomato, white potato, peppers, eggplant) brought the challenge to a new level. And every time we gathered, I would find a combination of ingredients to satisfy all the requirements – and not just feed our bodies, but really nourish our full selves.
I have joked for years that recipes are just guidelines. I don’t have to follow them exactly, but I do have to understand what they are trying to do. I have stopped buying cilantro at the store just because a recipe calls for it. I follow my pleasure (hedonism!) and desire. Just like the pairs of dancers all those decades ago, I have left behind the recipes. I feel free to veer from the page. Sometimes it is leaving out an ingredient (cilantro), sometimes it is taking various portions of different recipes and recombining them. I have a friend who often asks me for a recipe for something I’ve made and I laugh. Sure, I have a recipe, but I don’t follow it exactly and I don’t always make the notes in the recipe.
For me, queer food is about pleasure, creativity, innovation, resourcefulness, and improvisation.
- Merriam Webster https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hedonism ↩︎
