What Is Queer Food?

A celebrated food writer’s expansive, audacious excavation of the development of modern queer identity and food culture

Food in America and Europe has long been shaped, twisted and upended by queer creatives. John Birdsall fills the gap between the past and present, channelling the twin forces of criticism and cultural history to propel readers 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 the intention surrounding a meal, the circumstances behind it, the people gathered around the table.

With cinematic verve and prose that dazzles, What Is Queer Food? is 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.