"It's fire and food and spices"
July 5, 2016 10:30 AM   Subscribe

What is a queer kitchen? Is there a recognizable queer style or sensibility that can be expressed through food? These questions and more were at the heart of a recent conversation hosted at the Williams Sonoma flagship store in San Francisco's Union Square during the city's Pride Weekend.
posted by BekahVee (47 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
So..."I'm sorry, your kitchen is too heteronormative for you to be considered queer."

I suppose it's nice they're focusing in something other than fashion, for once.
posted by happyroach at 10:43 AM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


the skull ice cube mold my partner and I bought at Williams Sonoma a couple weeks ago certainly brings a certain hard femme realness...

but seriously, when I think of queer food culture, I think of (found) family style eating -- potlucks, inclusion for food restrictions and allergies, mismatched flatware.
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 10:50 AM on July 5, 2016 [40 favorites]


This is the story that, as far as I can tell, inspired the event: America, Your Food Is So Gay by John Birdsall. It's well worth a read, as it makes a compelling case that gay people have not merely been behind a lot of modern food trends, but their aesthetic has informed the way we think about food nowadays.
posted by maxsparber at 10:51 AM on July 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


This raises some interesting points although I have a couple of qualms:

1. Could we mention lesbian or bisexual cooking? MFK Fisher's affairs with women are fairly well documented at this point, for instance. While I'm glad to have the term queer, describe myself as queer and certainly am not a lesbian, I have definitely noticed that "queer" tends to eclipse "lesbian" and "bisexual woman" as designations far more than it gets used to eclipse/encompass/overwrite "gay man".

2. Class and culture - an awful lot of those non-straight chefs and cookbook writers felt very free to help themselves to the cooking cultures and classes to which they did not belong, made bank thereon, etc. White gay men don't always have the greatest relationship to non-white and/or non-European cultures, and that sometimes has been specifically about sexuality and exploitation - all the fashion/culture/food stuff that derived from gay men going to Tangier because they could, basically, exploit poor young locals for sex. You get this uptick in "exotic" influences in the late seventies, for instance, because Yves Saint Laurent and his set spent a lot of holiday time in Tangier.

3. Transgression. I wonder. Sometimes I get tired of trangression and then I find myself thinking "what is queerness if it's normalized, if there's nothing left to transgress; is there anything there?" Cooking as transgression - transgressing what? What is the value of cooking to transgress? What does it say about cooking if we set up "rules" as something to transgress? How does mere transgression get incorporated into capital? (I freely admit that as a cook I am a traditionalist and would rather spend my time baking my way through boring regional British pastries than anything else.)

4. Materiality. When I think about queer cooking, I think about specific practices that are produced by the lived conditions of queerness. Food that is queer to me: gluten-free vegan soy-free no-peanut desserts; chips and hummus because what does one bring to a potluck when one is too fabulous to get up before 5pm; kitsch desserts, but vegan kitsch desserts; stuffed grape leaves for no reason that I can discern; pancake fundraisers; pasta fundraisers; lots of booze but not enough snacks; cheap wine....I stress that these are the things that I experience as queer foods, as an AFAB white person of lower middle class extraction.

Of course, I am stodgy and boring and definitively not fabulous, so my food really isn't queer food - that said, everyone is always reaching for seconds because I'm not under the impression that you put some sprinkles and cool whip on things and call it a day.

I don't know - I guess "queer enough" is, like "trans enough" something that other people always are and you yourself can never be. I wish there were a term for me that was like "queer plus boring", then I could use that.
posted by Frowner at 10:51 AM on July 5, 2016 [48 favorites]


It's well worth a read,
previously on metafilter
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:55 AM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


Frowner - there are a couple of paragraphs on lesbian chefs in the article which mentions Preeti Mistry, Elizabeth Falkner, Traci Des Jardins and Elka Gilmore.
posted by Sophie1 at 11:10 AM on July 5, 2016


My queer kitchen is full of shedded dog fur, rapacious ants, comfort food, and Luzianne tea. If that means I have to relinquish my gay card, so be it.
posted by blucevalo at 11:19 AM on July 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


Um. My queer kitchen is made up of ancient cookie sheets, a well-used Cuisinart Dutch oven, an electric kettle and a lot of canned and frozen staple foods, is that properly queer? I can't afford Le Creuset cast iron.
posted by angeline at 11:28 AM on July 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


I mean in an academic sense yes there is a semiotics of a kitchen that absolutely can be queered (and one that I am using at the basis of a speculative fiction queer novel I am writing) but I highly doubt Williams and Sonoma is capable of incorporating what queering a kitchen means into their overall branding strategy?
posted by Annika Cicada at 11:29 AM on July 5, 2016 [9 favorites]


If nothing else, as TFA notes, the role of Craig Clairborne in the modern American food landscape casts a deep queer shadow over everyone who lights a stove in these parts.

Otherwise, a queer kitchen is anywhere where queers cook and eat, and, especially, gather to cook and eat. Go away, Williams-Sonoma, you don't get to monetize this.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:29 AM on July 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


Frowner - there are a couple of paragraphs on lesbian chefs in the article which mentions Preeti Mistry, Elizabeth Falkner, Traci Des Jardins and Elka Gilmore.

I was thinking more about the pre-nineties history of cooking in the US, putting women cooks and food writers beside Beard et al...but I guess now the nineties is history, ranked up there with the Fisherian 1940s, etc, and I am old now.
posted by Frowner at 11:31 AM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


I somehow find this entire notion somehow offensive, but I am not entirely sure why.
posted by hippybear at 11:32 AM on July 5, 2016 [21 favorites]


"We make jokes and laugh all day long," said Mistry, but her employees learn fast that dumb anatomical jokes won't fly.
Not a joke, but due to circumstances of my upbringing I learned of "fish taco" as a metaphor long before I realized that it was a literal thing. I had at least one very confused date conversation before I figured it out.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:35 AM on July 5, 2016 [11 favorites]


I mean, I get having a problem with the whole concept, but would you prefer Williams-Sonoma not host the event? I'm not sure it's a giant monetization strategy for the store vs they have an event space, it was pride, they're a cooking-related store, and someone who started a magazine wanted to have a topical event.

Anyway, this discussion makes me really miss Elizabeth Falkner in SF. I was at Citizen Cake once when she took a walk around the restaurant, mainly to brag about how she was going on Iron Chef the next week (she lost by a point). And those cakes...
posted by zachlipton at 11:48 AM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


A public Williams-Sonoma event around gay lifestyle questions? By chance, is this the file photo?
posted by Mayor West at 11:54 AM on July 5, 2016



I mean, I get having a problem with the whole concept, but would you prefer Williams-Sonoma not host the event?


I think there's always going to be several tensions with this kind of article and this kind of event:

1. Uncertainty about the meaning of "queer" - like, this article oscillates back and forth between saying absurd things like "queer cooking is pleasure* and fairly sensible things like "we can identify specific queer, gay, etc cultural histories of food and cooking". If you're going to argue that queer cooking is uniquely concerned with pleasure (as an abstract theory-y joissance-y sexy-y term) you're either going to leave out a lot of really existing queers or you're going to define pleasure in increasingly baroque ways.

2. If there's anything that is meant by the term "queer", it's an unease with totalizing discourses and capitalism. Not that you can't spend plenty of money on "queer" merchandise, but there's still something in the culture around the term that sits ill with affluent food culture.

Were I W-S, I would probably have been a little less hip in my terminology and focused on material culture.



*NO IT IS NOT. When you have made polite noises about your zillionth sprinkle-encrused box mix cupcake with a chemical tasting frosting unicorn on it - or even made approving noises about your zillionth two-inches-of-buttercream-on-a-one-inch-cupcake** - you will rethink all that queerness-and-pleasure stuff. "Pleasure" is not necessarily made out of sprinkles or extremely sugary or flavored with this season's trendiest seasoning.

**doesn't that sound like it should be a euphemism?
posted by Frowner at 11:58 AM on July 5, 2016 [9 favorites]


i guess thinking about it Williams and Sonoma is more where the event was hosted and given that I know quite a few gay people who love Williams and Sonoma I guess it makes sense.

It's just not the queer I'm thinking of, so when I broaden my perspective it kinda makes total sense that Williams and Sonoma is a place where this discussion would be had. My queer kitchen is more Fred Meyer hahahahaha
posted by Annika Cicada at 12:15 PM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


I read once that historians argue with each other by what they leave out, and holy wow did that article erase straight woman chefs - Lewis to Luard to Child to Waters.

I'm trying to read it as "all these important chefs were gay or queer which is reflected in the[ir] tradition thus" and hitting sentences that parse as "these gay cooks were the first people to make this cooking important". "Important" needs some examination there.
posted by clew at 12:16 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


I wish there were a term for me that was like "queer plus boring", then I could use that.

How about "queh" (queer + meh)?
posted by OntologicalPuppy at 1:01 PM on July 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


I can't think of you as boring even while trying, Frowner. You *may* not be domestically materially fabulous, but your writing is like a clifftop beacon fire.
posted by clew at 1:06 PM on July 5, 2016 [19 favorites]


How about "queh" (queer + meh)?

I don't know - the condition of being boring seems slightly different from the condition of being meh, which to me carries a quality of indifference rather than boredom.

I'm inclining toward "quoring" because

1. It can also be a noun: "The quorings had a weekly potluck at Frowner's house. All attendees were required to bring at least one kind of regional British pastry containing raisins."

2. It can stand in for "queering" - "Quoring the kitchen - the queer history of crackers and cheese".

3. Also, obviously, it can be an adjective: "Frowner wore a rather quoring though inoffensive outfit to the potluck"
posted by Frowner at 1:08 PM on July 5, 2016 [6 favorites]


Clifftop beacon fire! I like that. ~Waves tongue of flame in gratitude to clew~
posted by Frowner at 1:09 PM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


I've wondered that in learning to cook during college, I instinctively gravitated towards haute cuisine recipes as a way of sublimating or compensating for the social lack due to being marginalized as a queer effeminate boy while growing up.

But, that's the same stereotype as "queer artists", though, isn't it? And that's what makes this categorization so fraught; a queer kitchen is not the same idea as a queer-theoretic kitchen.

That cauliflower creme panna cotta I made on Canada Day, though, it was a killer.
posted by polymodus at 1:10 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


As a gay man over 60, I dislike the term "queer" being used (in Frowner's well chosen words) to "eclipse/encompass/overwrite 'gay man,'" particularly in the case of James Beard, who's not around to defend himself from being appropriated in this fashion.

"Queer" is a twenty-first century cultural posture, not a variety of sexual orientation.
posted by A. Davey at 1:26 PM on July 5, 2016 [4 favorites]


I happen to know several gay couples who live together, and their kitchens range from super-fancy to "cereal boxes on the table for the kids"
posted by jeff-o-matic at 1:28 PM on July 5, 2016


All I know is if you invite all your Queer friends to a potluck at least five people will bring hummus and no one will bring enough pita bread. It's some kind of Queer law and I'm pretty sure it's enforced by the Great Queer Powers That Be.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 1:29 PM on July 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


I'm inclining toward "quoring"
Pronounced "keen-wah" right?
posted by chococat at 3:17 PM on July 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


I happen to know several gay couples who live together, and their kitchens range from super-fancy to "cereal boxes on the table for the kids"

I am now imagining some kind of commune with a very complicated internal architecture.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:42 PM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


I guess I'm confused, because the various descriptions of potlucks in this thread sound more or less like every one of the plain ol' average American potlucks I've ever been to (but I've spent the last 22 years in either Asheville NC or Portland OR, so my experience might be skewed). Honest question - am I not getting some element of the conversation?
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:09 PM on July 5, 2016


Although I can't recall whether I've ever seen stuffed grape leaves at a potluck, so there's that
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:10 PM on July 5, 2016


a queer kitchen is not the same idea as a queer-theoretic kitchen.

One of the things I like about MetaFilter is that I can read sentences like this.

More to the topic, I think that part of the unease is that "queer" is, almost always, a self-identifier*, and there are as many versions of queerness as, well, as people who identify as queer. In that way, it's a much more central (but also much more fraught) identification than "gay" and "lesbian." Seeing how quickly capitalist America moved to reduce "gay" and "lesbian" to market categories, seeing a commercial entity even tangentially moving in on queer identity is profoundly unsettling for many.

* Which might be part of what A. Davey finds problematic about assigning it to Beard, for whom the term would likely have very different connotations.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:17 PM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


Greg_Ace: Honest question - am I not getting some element of the conversation?

Well one thing that really struck me as familiar to my experience, though I hadn't consciously reflected on it until The demon that lives in the air mentioned it upthread, is this: growing up in a rural, relatively conservative midwestern environment, potlucks were everywhere. Whereas having migrated into a much less conservative one, potlucks are still everywhere, but people label their contributions as to allergens and dietary preferences as a matter of course. It's not a huge difference but it's a distinctive one, a slight change in norms that feels at you when you experience it that "this isn't the same community you grew up with".
posted by traveler_ at 7:32 PM on July 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


I largely view food as a reflection of local and cultural history, an aknowledgement of what's come before us (my families traditions, my cities best chili) and cultural celebration. I know that food is modified to local tastes (as a Louisiana living in Chicago I get homesick for many things I grew up with) but it is a part of my history I communicate with others when I cook. And when I eat food cooked by different nationalities or recipies made in different parts in the world, I'm experiencing food seeped in tradition, local resources, values and expression.

I'm not sure queerness can really communicate that history because the impacts of the locality and history of culinary arts, as there are so many environmental factors and cultural factors that are past sexual identity. I feel that while my queerness may make me more sensitive to others needs. And I do believe that my wife and I bond over cooking and share our heritage in a way that might not happen in a family with strict 1950's gender norms, I don't think it impacts food as much as the factors mentioned above.

I want to celebrate all types of cooks and there have been brilliant queer people involved in sharing and revolutionizing some of the food I eat, but I'm impacted by so many hetronormative experiences with cooking as well.
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:57 PM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


holy wow did that article erase straight woman chefs -

luckily we're not on a desert island; is not sole remaining account of culinary life in usa america
posted by listen, lady at 8:23 PM on July 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


I read once that historians argue with each other by what they leave out,

Non-facetiously, no, not really. (I am a historian.) Historians argue by very specifically engaging peers' arguments and evidence. It's all about showing your work. It's not subtweeting. I guess in a textbook a historian signals their priorities by what they leave out, but it's not historians they're writing for.
posted by listen, lady at 8:39 PM on July 5, 2016


How about "queh"

This is basically how queer is pronounced in certain parts of Massachusetts. As in, "call my quahog queh, but don't call it quoring."
posted by mubba at 9:14 PM on July 5, 2016


Thanks, traveler_, I hadn't considered that angle.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:37 PM on July 5, 2016


(Dug up the historian's comment, listen, lady; it's Anthony Grafton in The Footnote specifically discussing methods of *insult* between historians, and possibly joking. I over-claimed.)

However. On rereading, and reading the Birdsall piece, I'm still annoyed at the erasure. Either author could have written a whole lot about the important work done by gay chefs and the effect of their gayness and/or queerness without claiming that they did *all* the work. The former is defensible by "there are other articles written"; the latter is inaccurate, and in the specific gender politics of cooking is punching down, because it's reliably women chefs who vanish.
posted by clew at 11:00 PM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


Are there two dudes or two ladies fucking in it? Then it's a queer kitchen.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 12:27 AM on July 6, 2016


Damn it now I need skull ice cubes
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 12:29 AM on July 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


Are there two dudes or two ladies fucking in it? Then it's a queer kitchen.

Other genders are available. Queerness not limited to time spent fucking. Terms and conditions apply, no warranty is implied or stated.
posted by Dysk at 1:28 AM on July 6, 2016 [8 favorites]


I like this article by Birdsall mentioned in the NPR article quite a bit: straight up passing
posted by Annika Cicada at 2:57 AM on July 6, 2016


Other genders are available. Queerness not limited to time spent fucking. Terms and conditions apply, no warranty is implied or stated.

This is true. No exclusivity was implied. But I think fucking is a better place to look than the aesthetic of a kitchen or for some ephemeral queer essence Williams Sonoma can sell us to make us more authentically queer. At least for me.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:14 AM on July 6, 2016


Queerness is so much more than sex to me, and I find the widespread inclination to locate queerness purely or predominantly in sex puzzling. I certainly wouldn't locate it in anything Williams Sonoma sell either, of course.
posted by Dysk at 4:14 AM on July 6, 2016 [3 favorites]


Interesting that in this discussion (the one in TFA) we hear about, mostly, female chefs and male food writers, when it's often the other way around.

(There is Danny Bowien, who's great, but it should be noted that the executive chef of Mission Chinese Food is a woman, Angela Dimayuga)

Mistry's reverence for her lesbian chef heroes belies a trend that I, admittedly anecdotally, have noticed in professional kitchens, which is that queer, lesbian, and bisexual women are present in numbers I've not seen in other professions. i.e. America: Your food is so gay; women who like other women are cooking it. But for some reason it's not talked about that much?
posted by zingiberene at 5:30 AM on July 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


I wish there were a term for me that was like "queer plus boring", then I could use that.

The word you're looking for is "queertidian."
posted by drlith at 5:49 AM on July 6, 2016 [12 favorites]


Where as offhand dismissal of lesbians and bi women in professional kitchens could be dismissed as "glibadism."
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:50 AM on July 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


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