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

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 legitimized. 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 this shared culture 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 color 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.

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.