Queers at the Table

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 legitimised. During the AIDS epidemic, gay men and their allies centred food as an expression of collective care for those who needed it most. Queer and trans folk have also 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 queer food 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 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 colour 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.