Queers at the Table Press Kit
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 legitimized. During the AIDS epidemic, gay men and their allies centred food as an expression of collective care for those who needed it most. And queer and trans folk have 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 this shared culture 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 as 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.
Arsenal Pulp Press, 2025: https://arsenalpulp.com/Books/Q/Queers-at-the-Table
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Images of the book and photos of the co-editors: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rS5Ksg-rRP-kdcpGFG-nz0YnSTF-soGF?usp=sharing
Editor Bios
Co-editor of Queers at the Table (Arsenal Pulp Press 2025), Alex D. Ketchum (she/her) is an Assistant Professor at McGill University's Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF) and the co-organizer of the Queer Food Conference. Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the trailblazing restaurant Mother Courage of New York City, Ketchum's second book, Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses (Concordia University Press 2022), is the first history of the more than 230 feminist and lesbian-feminist restaurants, cafes, and coffeehouses that existed in the United States from 1972 to the present. She is also the author of the book Engage in Public Scholarship! A Guide to Feminist and Accessible Communication (Concordia University Press, 2022) and the zines How to Start a Feminist Restaurant (Microcosm Press 2018) and How to Organize Inclusive Events (Microcosm Press 2020).
Co-editor of Queers at the Table (Arsenal Pulp Press 2025), Megan J. Elias (she/they) is Director of Food Studies Programs at Boston University. A historian of American foodways, she is the author of five books about food history. Her most recent book was Food on the Page: Cookbooks and American Culture (Penn Press 2017). At BU Elias teaches courses in food history, food and gender, and food memoirs and the Introduction to Gastronomy. She is currently working on a book about the hospitality industry and also a book on food for the ‘Gendered Perspectives’ series published by Taylor and Francis. Her other books include Stir it Up: Home Economics and American Culture (Penn Press, 2009); Lunch: a History (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014).
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Reviews
I kept sneaking away from work to read more and more of this book because it kept giving me such hits of pure pleasure. What a joy to witness these fascinating artists and writers exploring everything from the nut loaves served at lesbian festivals (!) to how the endless magic of seed saving relates to expansive ideas about gender. An invaluable collection!
-Lagusta Yearwood, founder of Lagusta's Luscious and author of Sweet + Salty
Queers at the Table is a stunning interdisciplinary ode to the possibilities food holds for community creation and self-definition. It is the kind of anthology that will be passed around, taught, and referenced for years thanks to its inventiveness, breadth, and evergreen storytelling.
-Alicia Kennedy, food and culture writer and author of No Meat Required
Thinking about queer modes of production, cooking, and eating encourages us to question established norms and received wisdom about what food is and what it can do to us and for us as individuals and members of society. The essays, comics, and recipes in this collection invite us to explore absences and negative spaces to outline all that may have been hidden or erased: fear and resistance, chosen families and inclusive communities, concealed identities and overt defiance.
-Fabio Parasecoli, author of Gastronativisms: Food, Identity, Politics and professor of Food Studies at NYU
Alex D. Ketchum and Megan J. Elias have corralled some of our most vibrant voices to deliver a sparkling ode to the queer experience and food's place in it. Queers at the Table will delight, surprise, and move you.
-Mayukh Sen, author of Taste Makers
What is queer food? Just like our community, it resists definition. In this loving, thoughtful anthology, queer food is educational and erotic. It is sweet potato cake, bistek with tallarin verde, and nutritional yeast-dusted popcorn. It is a historical absence we honour through our imaginations. It is the food we cook to heal ourselves, and the food we cook for the people we love.
-Jonathan Kauffman, author of Hippie Food
Queers at the Table is a collaborative celebration of queer culinary culture and an evocative collection showcasing richly varied interpretations on the theme.
-Sandor Ellix Katz, author of Wild Fermentation and Art of Fermentation