Pass the Butchy Borscht

December 17, 2024 1:20 AM

In the 1980s and ’90s, a wave of unapologetically queer cookbooks beat the odds and made it to print. queer historians have since concluded that The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book was the first lesbian cookbook ever (the year was 1954), and amongst dykes who cook, it’s the stuff of legends. This is in part due to the fact that it wasn’t just a Rolodex of recipes; it was a memoir. The book chronicles Toklas’s life with the author and public intellectual Gertrude Stein, and, for Scholder, it felt like permission to do away with convention.

“Survival is political when you’re in a society that doesn’t want you to exist,” says Dr. Alex Ketchum, a queer historian who cofounded The Historical Cooking Project in 2013. In 2021, Ketchum curated an exhibit titled “A Recipe for a Queer Cookbook” at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, where she is an assistant professor. The exhibit poses the question on everyone’s mind: What makes a cookbook queer? Dr. Ketchum’s answer required the authors to self-identify as LGBTQ+, somehow touch on issues relating to the community in the book, and include instructions for preparing food or drink (not just metaphorical recipes).

posted by mxjudyliza (7 comments total)

A few queer cookbooks I have:

Out of Our Kitchen Closets: San Francisco Gay Jewish Cooking, compiled in 1987 by SF’s LGBTQ synagogue Congregation Sha’ar Zahav

Something Delicious This Way Comes (2003) and In Search of the Lost Taste, vegan cookbooks by queer noise band vocalist Joshua Ploeg (he is known for going on cooking tours in the same sense as a punk band tour, and he makes food boxes too.)

Doomed Rabbit: Recipes from the Leather Community and Friends (1994). Includes Barbarian Beans contributed by erotic artist The Hun and “On Your Knees!” Chutney from Miss Violet, Headmistress

We Got A Wild Hare Up Our Bun (2003) - a comb-bound cookbook compiled by my friends Kevin and Bruce. It includes Kevin’s Punk Rock Sandwich, Bruce’s Cioppino, and I contributed Toaster Oven Mochi.

posted by larrybob at 6:26 AM on December 17, 2024 [7 favorites]

I'm now imagining Gysin rapping William S. Burroughs on the knuckles with a spoon after the latter tries to stick a finger in the batter.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 9:18 AM on December 17, 2024 [1 favorite]

I am having a whole-body memory of Bailey-Coy Books on Broadway in about 1989.
posted by clew at 10:18 AM on December 17, 2024 [1 favorite]

I'm reading this now (thanks, Anna's Archive) and it's really interesting. The introduction by Diana Souhami gives some really interesting details about Alice and Gertrude's lives. (I'm reading a PDF of the 90s reprint)

I've just come to to the first recipe (boeuf bourgignon) and am eager to try it and whatever others will work with a middle class budget and modern day grocery store or farmer's market.
posted by signsofrain at 1:31 PM on December 17, 2024 [2 favorites]

I have lived in Morocco off and on for about 3 years, total. The "haschish fudge" has a name, ma3joun, which means "pasted", and holy cow will you ever be pasted after having a wee cube of the stuff, which is delicious enough to make you think eating more is a good idea. It is not.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:42 PM on December 17, 2024 [3 favorites]

I'm seriously considering making the 'fudge' without the cannabis, which is a bit pointless, but it sounds really nice.
Scientific American link had the recipe.
This post also introduced me to Get Fat Don't Die, which is a queer cookbook in quite a different vein.
posted by ngaiotonga at 6:53 AM on December 18, 2024 [1 favorite]

(good link ngaiotonga!)
posted by clew at 12:24 PM on December 18, 2024 [1 favorite]