I bet you didn't know there was such a thing as queer food, did you? And before you start listing all the strangest foods you've ever heard of — octopus, pigeon, slug — we're not talking odd foods; we're talking about food for the queers. You can call them queers now. It's totally cool.
Queer food ...
Let's take a look at what in the world that might mean.
For some, queer food is simply food made by queer people. Others say it's about sharing food in queer community, while there are those who believe it should include serving marginalized people who have been excluded from fine dining spaces.
So what is queer food, aside from a term slowly gaining traction in certain corners of the LGBTQ community? The question was the subject of the Queer Food Conference at Boston University in April …
One of the founders of the conference, Megan Elias, the director of the university's gastronomy program, declined to give a rigid definition, because, she noted, it can mean so many different things …
What queer food means for Elias ‘is circumstantial,' she said, ‘and it's up for conversation.'
Is it any surprise that there's not really a clear definition for this category of food? It's a confused cuisine that just doesn't know what it is or where it's going in life.
One queer named Vanessa says, "If you're queer, your food is queer; that's pretty much it."
Another queer named John says, "[Q]ueer food isn't necessarily focused on dishes or recipes. It's focused on those voices and those individuals who transformed cookbooks, for instance, transformed restaurant spaces, transformed how queer people could be visible in public spaces."
Alex Ketchum — she's queer too — says, "I think food allows us this way to take on the challenging and the difficult and yet kind of reaffirm our own community and then create a space that reinvigorates us and literally nourishes us."
"Everything about queerness to me is about community," says a queer named Liz. "It's about identity within community. When I think about being queer, I think about being queer with others. So if I think about queer food, it's about eating with others."
"To me," says another queer named Ludwig, "queer food is nourishment that goes against the grain, goes against power."
So there you have it. Nobody really knows what queer food is, yet NBC News thought it was important to write an entire article on the subject.
Nice work, NBC!
You'll be glad to know that Pride Month is over and you can stop pandering to the queers now.
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