Digitized "What's the Recipe for a Queer Cookbook" Exhibit

What is a queer cookbook? Is there a set recipe for what makes a cookbook queer? Is it that the author is queer? Or is there something inherently queer about the cookbook itself? What do Lou Rand Hogan’s The Gay Cookbook of 1966; the Bloodroot Collective’s Political Palate of 1980; the Cincinnati Lesbian Activist Bureau’s 1983 cookbook Whoever Said Dykes Can’t Cook?; The Lesbian Erotic Cookbook by Ffiona Morgan Genre (1998); and Lesbians Have to Eat, Too! by Jenice Armstead (2011) have in common? Does a cookbook published by a global media company and marketed as “queer,” such as Buzzfeed’s Tasty Pride: 75 Recipes and Stories from the Queer Food Community (2020) count as a queer cookbook? This exhibit focused on American and Canadian cookbooks raises these questions.

Thank you to Les Archives Gaies du Québec and the Les Archives Lesbiennes du Québec for their contributions to the exhibit. Thank you in particular to Simone Beaudry- Pilotte of the AGQ and Laure Neuville of the ALQ for assisting me in locating recipes within your archives. Funding for the book stands and printing of the posters comes from Dr. Alex Ketchum's SSHRC Insight Grant #253028 exploring the need for publicly accessible scholarship.

This exhibit was curated by Dr. Alex Ketchum of the IGSF with special assistance from Jacqueline Lee- Tam. The physical exhibit will be in the hallways of the Leacock Building of McGill University from August 18- December 20, 2021. The digital exhibit will live on historicalcookingproject.com.

If you would like to download a PDF of the digital exhibit, you can here.

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For users of screen readers, please note that the images are described in more detail below the images rather than embedded as alt-image text. The alt-image text is quite basic. All images in the digital exhibit have descriptions.

On definitions: the word "queer" in the exhibit is used as an umbrella term for LGBTQIA2S+ identities. This word was previously a pejorative but was reclaimed in the late 1980s and 1990s in the United States. The activist organization Queer Nation, which sought to eradicate hate crime, explained its reasons for reclaiming the term in the pamphlet “Queers Read This,” which the organization distributed during the 1990 New York Pride Parade. The pamphlet stated, “We’ve chosen to call ourselves queer. Using “queer” is a way of reminding us how we are perceived by the rest of the world. It’s a way of telling ourselves we don’t have to be witty and charming people who keep our lives discreet and marginalized; we use queer as gay men loving lesbians and lesbians loving being queer. Queer, unlike GAY, doesn’t mean MALE.” However, the word “queer” is still not used by everyone within lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, transgender, and two spirit communities. Some of the cookbook and recipe authors identified their work as explicitly lesbian or gay. For those cookbooks and zines, this exhibit uses the terms the authors used to identify their work.

What makes a cookbook "queer"? Is there a recipe for a queer cookbook?

Some of the cookbooks in this exhibit tried to answer this question in their introductions.

The Queer Cookbook: A fully guided tour to the secrets of success in the homosexual kitchen!

Compiled by Donna Clark and illustrated by David Shenton (1997, Bloomsbury Publishing)

The book is published in English, is 164 pages, and contains around 200 recipes. It contains meat, fish, and vegetarian recipes. The author states that the target audience is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people who are interested in cooking.

The cover illustration of The Queer Cookbook depicts an illustration of two individuals, having just finished cooking in front of a bounty of meats, fish, pies, cocktails, serving platters, and more. A leather cuff with spikes sits next to two bowls of soup and a rainbow flag sticks out of a multilayer dish shaped like the Star of David. The book's cover emphasizes the word "queer" in bright pink letters.

The table of contents for The Queer Cookbook spans 6 pages. The introduction promises to answer some of the key questions this exhibit poses. It is followed by etiquette and queer culinary tips, a section on breakfasts, soups and starters, snacks and picnics, fairy cakes, fishy dishes, main meals, and desserts. The next sections move away from recipes for a single dish and focus on dinner parties, coffee, and a wine guide. Next, a special section on cooking for people with HIV addresses the dietary needs of people living with HIV and AIDs and highlights the UK organization Food Chain that is dedicated to cooking for and providing meals to people who are unable to cook or are rendered housebound due to periods of illness from their HIV or AIDS. The book finishes with sections on cooking for special occasions, party food, and queer cocktails.

The introduction presents Donna Clark's answer to the questions: "Why a queer cookbook?" and "What makes a queer recipe?" (1). She writes that "It's true that queers are into cuisine. As a litmus test I casually asked a random selection of homosexuals whether they could cook. They all replied instantly that not only could they cook, but they were probably the best cook, party host and all-round entertainer that they knew. This book puts that to the test"(1). Here Clark both perpetuates and challenges stereotypes about different members of the queer community/ies. She then adds that a queer recipe is "simple, a recipe that's been made for or by a queer." Clark shares one understanding of what a queer cookbook and queer recipe is. Her views are not shared by all of the cookbook and recipe writers in this exhibit. However, she presents the idea that for a recipe (or even a cookbook) to be queer, it has to be by or for queer people. This definition can include a wide range of recipes and even for Clark, the recipes that she includes in the cookbook are in part queer only because of their framing. They are queer because they are known to be by queer cooks and those cooks wanted their recipes to be included amongst the recipes of other queer cooks. The aspects of community, sharing, and framing of the recipes remain important in this cookbook.

Clark then describes what's in the book: "a vast, eclectic, sumptuous mélée of fishes from queers I've met and queers on the Internet. Plus all those handy hints and tips to make your mealtimes and catering adventures go with a bang"(1). She also notes that some recipes are approximate, some use UK measurements, and some use US measurements as she wanted to present the recipes in the form that they were provided to her.

While most of the recipes in The Queer Cookbook look like recipes in any cookbook, the framing of the sections (and particularly the illustrations) mark the cookbook's queerness. For example, in the section on fairy cakes (the British name for cupcakes), an illustration has two individuals sitting at a table with cookies. The one character, while holding up two cookies that appear to be holding hands, says "gosh! even your gingerbreadpersons are out and proud."

Here you can see the ways that most of the recipes in The Queer Cookbook are pretty standard recipes. This recipe for chocolate cake includes a list of ingredients and instructions for preparation in paragraph form. Even the name of the recipe is only "chocolate cake." While some of the recipes in the book do try to incorporate aspects of queer culture or word-play in the titles, many of the recipes in The Queer Cookbook are straight-forward.

The sections on events are more explicitly queer. This page on "The Queer Christmas" discusses how to meal plan for Christmas and emphasizes that because it is a queer Christmas, dishes do not have to be traditional.

The page on "Steve's 'Lazy Queen' July 4th/ Super Bowl Party" is a pretty standard hamburger and hotdog menu. The editions of the tagline "Serves as many queens as you can accommodate"(152) and the line on the following page talking about how many drinks to buy "Quantity? You know your friends better than I do, sweetheart"(153) are details that make the cookbook stand out.

The page above on queer cocktails makes a claim about the inherent queerness of cocktails. The recipes are still pretty standard for cocktail recipes.

The back cover of the cookbook emphasizes the "queerness" of the cookbook itself. The tagline "a fully guided Tour to the Secrets of Success in the Homosexual Kitchen!" emphasizes the word homosexual rather than queer, whereas further down the cover asks readers "Ever wondered what to prepare for the consummate 'lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered Pride' breakfast?" The back cover claims that "with a disposable income and an artistic bent, queers are seriously into cuisine," which leans into stereotypes. Also, while in 1997 gay men, particularly cis gay white men tended to have more disposable income, many lesbians had less income than both their straight women, straight men, and gay male counterparts. The cookbook declares that it is "a must for all self-respecting gays."

These themes and questions about what makes a cookbook or recipe queer continue in the other texts in the exhibit.

History of Queer Cookbooks

The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook (1954) and The Gay Cookbook by Chef Lou Rand Hogan (1966)

set important precedents for what makes a cookbook "queer." As discussed in more detail below, Toklas' genre blending of memoir and recipe work has inspired numerous queer cookbook authors. Hogan's use of illustrations and playful tone (including numerous innuendos and puns)is echoed in later cookbooks. In these two cookbooks, we already see that the author's identity, the formatting of the cookbook, the relationship to community, the use of images, and the recipes are all part of what makes a cookbook queer.

The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook (1954, Bloomsbury Publishing)

TheAlice B. Toklas Cookbook, written by the long-time companion of American novelist Gertrude Stein, fuses recipes with memoir. This edition of the cookbook has a foreword written by American food writer M.F.K. Fisher.

Toklas described the book in the foreword "A Word with the Cook" as a "mix of recipe and reminiscence." She indicates that she wrote it primarily for American audiences but could see it as being useful for British audiences as well. The recipes include meat, fish, and dairy.

Alice B. Toklas's work has been the subject of academic publications such as Rafia Zafar's article Elegy and Remembrance in the Cookbooks of Alice B. Toklas and Edna Lewis (2013), Alice McLean's book Aesthetic Pleasure in Twentieth-Century Women's Food Writing: The Innovative Appetites of MFK Fisher, Alice B. Toklas, and Elizabeth David (2012), Lauren Elizabeth Cirina's article "Rewriting the Domestic Sphere: Modern Notions of Narrativity in “Tender Buttons” and “The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook” (2019), and more! Within scholarship, this book has garnered significant attention due to its blurring of literary genres: cookbook and memoir.

(the infamous fudge recipe)

At the time of its publication, one recipe in particular drew fascination and scorn. In her section of recipes collected from friends, Toklas featured Brion Gysin's recipe for Haschich Fudge, a mixture of fruit, nuts, spices, and "canibus sativa" or marijuana. Toklas' publisher Simon Michael Bessie wrote that it caused a "small sensation" (viii).

Other recipes, such as those for fried frogs legs (23) and stories about cooking bass for Picasso (29) serve to educate American audiences about European cuisines.

(fried frogs legs recipes)

(cooking bass for Picasso)

These recipes do more than describe the food. They are part of what makes this cookbook queer. Toklas's pages are filled with anecdotes about her lover and partner Gertrude Stein (who she always refers to as "Gertrude Stein"- never just "Gertrude"). Readers learn what ingredients Stein preferred or scoffed at. Apparently Stein was unsure if she preferred a dressing with chestnuts, mushrooms, or oysters (29). These small details speak to an enduring relationship in which each detail of a lover's preferences is learned and considered. The cookbook is filled with these quiet comments, which speak to a life filled with love and companionship. The queerness of their relationship and of the cookbook itself lives through subtext.

Among Toklas's recipe for Clear Turtle Soup and an anecdote about visiting a women's college with Stein, she describes the students as "beautiful young women" and "sirens" (126). The accompanying illustration is more reminiscent of a campfire than a university's dining hall.

(recipes from friends)

So what makes this cookbook queer? This book could be considered the oldest queer cookbook in this exhibit, yet much of the queerness exists in subtext. Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein's relationship is well known today, yet someone could have read this book in 1954 or even today and assume that Toklas and Stein were "just good friends" or "housemates" (common tropes about lesbian and queer women couples). The cookbook is filled with loving stories about their lives spent together, however, for readers who are not looking for it, they might miss the subtext.

The cookbook shares features common with other books in this exhibit: recipes from friends, the interweaving of the personal stories with the recipes themselves, and the queer identity of the author.

The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook provides an initial model of queer cookbooks that other authors build on. Later published cookbooks tend to move the queerness from the subtext to the text.

Layout and Organization

Although there are differences between the cookbooks in this exhibit, they all blend personal stories with recipes. Some authors like Toklas, Isengart, and Scholder lean into memoir while others prefer humorous anecdotes or quick comments in introductions to recipes.

The Art of Gay Cooking: A Culinary Memoir

by Daniel Isengart with a Foreword by Jeremiah Tower and Illustrations by Filip Noterdaeme (Outpost19, 2019)

In the introduction, while quoting his husband Filip Noterdaeme, Daniel Isengart reflected on the organization of The Art of Gay Cooking: A Culinary Memoir,“You are gay, your approach to cooking is gay, why bother trying to write a conventional cookbook?” (ii).

He decided to write his cookbook as a literary homage to The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, “adhering to her structure, mirroring specific passages, and echoing her magnificent voice throughout.” He explains that “what this book does not do is analyze what the art of gay cooking is- it merely shows it by example. But if you were to ask me, I would say that the art of cooking is the culinary equivalent of the joy of gay sex, or, to broaden the spectrum, the gay joy of sex: something we do for sheer pleasure, driven by passion, backed by knowing what we like (and learning how to go about it), seasoned with a good pinch of curiosity and, most importantly, coupled with an enthusiastic commitment to pay very close attention to the other- in this case, the ingredients that we are playing with to bring bliss to the table” (iii).

(p.331 about the author page)

This book then argues that what makes it “gay” is that the author is gay and open about his experiences. As it is a cookbook memoir, his stories include reminiscences that speak to his experiences within gay male culture (particularly in New York City, but also on the couples’ travels, and the authors’ early life in France and young adulthood in Germany before moving to New York City).

The book follows as a memoir with recipes, accompanied by illustrations (primarily of male figures). Like the earlier cookbooks discussed, there is a communal aspect to the book as it includes recipes from friends.

The book also includes discussions of kink. For example, on page 26, Daniel Isengart shares a memory of an event with a naked servant serving his dom during a dinner party. This cookbook does not hide sex or sexuality; however, unlike other cookbooks in this exhibit Isengart does not rely on pun and wordplay within the recipes or descriptions.

(recipe for fishy tacos)

The book also sees itself as part of a longer legacy of queer cookbooks as it is modeled after The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook. Recipes are written alongside the stories. Ingredients are not listed but rather are included in paragraph form, reminiscent of Toklas's work. Anecdotes about his relationship with his husband are interspersed between recipes, as is the case on the recipe page for fishy tacos (77). Unlike Toklas's book though, there is not subtext: the queerness is text. Daniel Isengart makes clear that his relationship with Filip Noterdaeme is romantic and sexual.

The cookbook is filled with a mix of meat, vegetarian, and fish dishes. It even includes a vegan recipe from a friend. Published sixty-five years after Toklas's own cookbook, the style may be similar, but the queerness is more readily apparent. He develops these ideas more in his manifesto, Queering the Kitchen (2018).

Another cookbook that follows in the legacy of Toklas is Cooking with Honey: What Literary Lesbians Eat.

Cooking with Honey: What Literary Lesbians Eat

edited by Amy Scholder, Firebrand Books, 1996

This cookbook brings together the personal reflections of lesbian writers with recipes. In the introduction, Amy Scholder writes about how Toklas' cookbook, particularly the chapter on "Recipes from Friends" inspired her to collect "recipes from lesbian writers that would in its sum expand one's view of lesbian life today, and that would in its parts reveal some details about each writer in idiosyncratic form" (10-11). From her experience in editing the cookbook and reading Toklas's work, Scholder has "gained an appreciation for the recipe as a literary form"(11) as it enables authors to bring a richness and texture to personal stories. This cookbook contains thirty-five recipes and stories by thirty five authors who identified as lesbian at the time of publication (some of the authors now identify as queer, bi, and/or trans).

Some of the authors focus more on the stories than the recipes, dedicating pages to their prose. Stories of childhood, recipes for big parties, and memories of dishes the authors have made with friends and lovers all intermingle. Jennie Livingston's "My Personal History of Pesto" follows the author's life through memories of eating and making pesto. In this chapter, Livingston shares memories that cross the world from Long Island, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Berlin, and back to San Francisco. Readers learn about Livingston's former partners, relationship with her mother, work, and even her childhood summer camp experience of reading the lesbian section of Our Bodies, Ourselves (128-135). The chapter ends with a personal note within the recipe itself "(I'm sure Becky, my organic gardening hippie camp counselor would've disagreed [about whether to let the bugs stay on the basil leaves], but alas, I spent more years living with my mother than in Becky's cabin)" (134).

Unlike Toklas' book, most of the recipes' ingredients are written in list form, as can be seen in the below picture of the muffins chapter. Minnie Bruce Pratt contributed a short entry with a recipe for cornbread muffins and a photo of her with her "lesbian husband" Leslie Feinberg, author of Stone Butch Blues. It is one of the shortest chapters with only two pages, but in the paragraph before the recipe, Minnie Bruce Pratt explains the recipe's significance throughout her life. These muffins were the first thing she learned to cook at home in Alabama. She had made the muffins "on her first date with Leslie" and "we ate them with Better Girl tomatoes and a casserole from yellow crookneck squash I'd grown in my backyard garden" (146). The entry ends in the present: she continues to make the muffins in her home "further north" that she serves with the tomatoes she grows in plastic garbage cans on the fire escape.

(pages used for the physical exhibit pages (146-147))

*(Content warning- the next paragraph includes a discussion of sexual violence)*

In addition to heartwarming and happy stories, the cookbook includes recipes alongside discussions of sexual violence: rape and incest. Camille Roy's "Date Rape Brownies" (173) shares the recipe for brownies that remind her of a time when her friend was raped and the rapist's girlfriend kept baking brownies to convince the survivor to not press charges against the rapist. This cookbook's inclusion of so many authors means that readers experience perspectives of a wide range of experiences (positive and negative) that lesbians had, which was Scholder's goal.

The cookbook has a mix of illustrations, photographs, and a comic contribution from Alison Bechdel, author of Dykes to Watch Out For! (62-63). The cartoon discusses the politics behind one's food choices and food's environmental and labour impacts. Like Bechdel's other comics about food, including her comics that include the fictional lesbian hang out Café Topaz, there is commentary about the often vegetarian recipes and dishes that were part of lesbian culture in the 1980s and 1990s. This cookbook does include some meat recipes, however.

The use of personal stories alongside recipes occurs in other cookbooks in this exhibit, including Jenice R. Armstead’s Lesbians Have to Eat, Too!.

Lesbians Have to Eat, Too!

by Jennice R. Armstead, 2011, self-published

Armstead, who is also the author of this cookbook's sequel Lesbians Have to Eat, 2!: More Stories, Memories & Thoughts in Food (2012), shares her personal stories alongside recipes.

In this self published cookbook, Armstead describes growing up in a military family and her own service in the military next to recipes. Many of the recipes mention how her domestic partner Davina Renee McGinnis, who she has been with since 2001, is willing to eat her recipes or "be her guinea pig."

In the story next to her chicken or turkey burrito recipe, Armstead shares that Davina also served in the US military and experiences pain from past surgeries related to her time there (54-55). The simplicity of this burrito recipe enabled them to focus on each other rather than having to spend too much time cooking. Here the personal stories explain the usefulness of certain recipes.

The pasta recipe, which is also accompanied by a story of the author's home life with Davina, includes chicken. While lesbian cookbooks are more known for their vegetarian recipes, Armstead also wrote recipes that use meat. This recipe's story begins sweetly, "as you have read in other stories in this book, my partner Davina is great."

Lesbians Have to Eat, Too! is part of the legacy of Toklas's work in that, while not explicitly making a connection to her work as Scholder and Isengart do, Armstead brings together recipe and memoir. This book has a single author, yet like Toklas, Scholder, and Isengart, she also shares recipes from friends (just written in her own words).

Genre bending/blending and unique formats are important aspects of queer cookbooks. Community and sharing recipes is another key theme in queer cookbooks.

Queer Community Cookbooks

As cookbook historian and antiquarian bookseller Don Lindgren writes in UNXLD: American Cookbooks of Community and Place (2018), community cookbooks tell stories of community and place. The recipes that they contain are "mementos of shared experience, of friendship" and they are "preserved records of collective effort in service to a cause" (5). While Lindgren primarily collects women's community cookbooks, queer community cookbooks share the similar features of: publication on a shoestring budget, recipes coming from local sources, created to generate revenue for a charitable cause, often spiral-bound (7). While the cookbooks by Toklas, Scholder, Isengart, and Armstead bring recipes from friends, lovers, and community members, the queer community cookbook shows these roots more explicitly.

Cooking with Pride

compiled by Leatherella Parsons, A Legend in Her Time for the International Association of Lesbian/ Gay Pride Coordinators, 1989, Act One

Cooking with Pride is a queer community cookbook that fundraised for the International Association of Lesbian and Gay Pride Coordinators (IAL/ GPC), as well as the various Pride Committees and P-Flags (United States' first and largest organization uniting parents, families, and allies with people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer founded in 1973) who submitted recipes. In the back of the book, sheets of paper from the publisher Act One pop-out with more information about the cookbook. As the first sheet declares, this cookbook is a compilation of nearly 300 recipes representing entries from 30 cities in 20 states or provinces, in 3 countries on 2 continents.

The cookbook is spiral-bound and printed in black, white, and purple. The aesthetics are similar to Kitchen Fairy's The Gay of Cooking (1982) which is also a spiral-bound cookbook also printed in purple, white, and black ink. The sections: "Appetizers, Pickles, and Relish;""Soups, Salads, and Vegetables;""Main Dishes;""Breads, Rolls, and Pastries;""Cakes, Cookies, and Desserts;""Candy, Jelly and Preserves;" and "Beverages, Brunch and Miscellaneous" all have introductions by the cookbook's compiler Leatherella Parsons. The appetizer section includes a story about the first Pride Coordinators Conference in Boston in 1982. The beverage section begins with a story about the pride conference in St. Louis. The design of the cookbook emphasizes the importance of every member of the community by reminding readers about shared pride conference experiences. Leatherella Parsons, who according to one of the pop-out sheets was leading danseuse with the Riker's Island Festival Ballet in New York, brings a theatrical flair to the stories with the use of numerous exclamation points.

The cookbook does not hide that it was created as a fundraiser. A second pop-out letter from Act One explains that "almost 25% of the first printing was sold before it left the print shop to the people who worked on it!" There was community support for this community cookbook in both production and distribution. In the final pages, a note explains "wholesale inquiries by Gay and/or Lesbian Groups who wish to use "Cooking with Pride" as a fundraiser are welcome at the same address."

The cookbook is less about the recipes themselves and as the second page explains "there is no such thing as a book of entirely new and original recipes and no originality is claimed for the recipes contained in this book. This book represents a collection of favorite recipes submitted by contributors who vouch for their excellence."

Leatherella Parsons writes in the introduction that "we are gaining ground daily, but the number of recipes which came unsigned or signed with an obvious alias, let us know how many, for one reason or another, are still in the closet. Let's hope this book gives us all a bit of courage." Although a reader might appreciate the wide array of meat and vegetarian dishes, the cookbook's inclusion of names with entries serves as a greater reminder that LGBTQ+ readers were not alone but part of a larger community.

What About Corporate Cookbooks with Recipes from Many Authors?

Tasty Pride: 75 Recipes and Stories from the Queer Food Community

edited by Jesse Szewczyk, Clarkson Potter Publishers of Penguin Random House, 2020

As evidenced above, queer cookbooks often contain recipes from a variety of contributors. The community cookbooks were made on low budget with spiral bindings. The Tasty Pride cookbook challenges the idea of queer community cookbooks.

The recipes come from 75 queer cooks and celebrities and the publisher donated $50,000 (USD) to GLAAD, yet the cookbook is published by a major publisher (Penguin Random House) and produced by Jesse Szewczyk for Buzzfeed’s food branch, Tasty. Does this cookbook still count as a queer community cookbook as it meets much of the definition: collectively sourced recipes, is a fundraiser, and written by LGBTQ+ individuals? Does Buzzfeed's involvement in the cookbook's publication undermine the community aspect of the cookbook? Or does a major media company wanting to publish a pride cookbook indicate mainstream acceptance and evolving cultural views of the LGBTQ+ community?

Inside the cover is the above text in huge font: "To all the queer cooks who have longed to see themselves represented in mainstream food media. We are in every restaurant, test kitchen, hotel, catering company, studio, and publication. This book and the stories within it prove that there is a seat at the table for all of us." Later in the introduction, Szewczyk discusses wishing that he had seen himself represented in kitchens and cookbooks. He writes that the impetus of editing this cookbook was "to pass on the gift of finding joy in each other's successes" (12).

Representation is definitely important and is a driving factor for some of the earlier queer cookbooks as well-- to have community-driven cookbooks by and for the LGBTQIA2S+ community/ies.

However, Buzzfeed's involvement could potentially undermine this role of representation. Did Buzzfeed work to publish the cookbook because the company actually cares about representation? Was the decision to publish this text just to capitalize on the LGBTQIA2S+ market? Is publishing this book a form of pinkwashing (the word "pinkwashing" describes the action of using gay-related issues in positive ways in order to distract attention from negative actions by an organization. It is a type of "cause marketing": marketing done by a for-profit business that seeks to both increase profits and to better society in accordance with corporate social responsibility, such as by including activist messages in advertising)?

Can all of these things be true at once? If so, is this still a queer cookbook?

Most queer community cookbooks collect donated recipes and the proceeds are used for fundraising. For the Tasty Pride cookbook however, the recipe authors were paid for sharing recipes. By paying authors, the Buzzfeed's role in the publication might feel less extractive as the authors and GLAAD received money through its publication. Lots to consider!

This cookbook has recipes and stories that specifically discuss bisexuality, which are not found in all of the queer cookbooks in this exhibit. The paragraph of Ruby Tandoh's Fudgey Miso Brownies Recipes discusses some of the challenges faced by bisexual people: biphobia (fear, hatred, and/or discrimination of bisexuals) and bi-erasure (the process of treating bisexuality as a non-existent sexual orientation). Tandoh says that these brownies bring together the best of salty and sweet. By including 75 different contributors and stories, this book has the ability to capture a wide variety of queer voices.

Does a cookbook’s relationship with LGBTQIA2S+ communities determine whether it is a queer cookbook? While the publisher of the cookbook might influence the content, the Tasty Pride cookbook makes the argument that the identity of the recipe's author is key to making a cookbook queer.

What is the Role of the Author in Making a Cookbook Queer?

Most of the cookbooks in this exhibit include recipes from the authors’ friends and family or from the larger LGBTQIA2S+ community/communities. This is the case whether the cookbook is a sprial bound community cookbook such as Cooking with Pride, compiled by Leatherella O. Parsons for the International Association of Lesbian/Gay Pride Coordinators or Alice B. Toklas’ 1954 text. When the author is a celebrity, such as Antoni Porowski of television’s Queer Eye published Antoni in the Kitchen (2019), the emphasis does tend to be on the recipes of a single individual. However, even when the founders of the food truck and store Big Gay Ice Cream, Bryan Petroff and Douglas Quint, published their cookbook with their own ice cream recipes in 2015, they designed their cookbook to emphasize the community aspects of their work and formatted the texts as a yearbook. The authors’ own identities are quite important for making a cookbook queer. A cookbook author must identify as LGBTQIA2S+ for the cookbook to be queer. However, if a cookbook’s authors are queer, is their cookbook necessarily queer?

A recurring article is the yearly LGBTQ+ cookbook list of the year. Examples include Buzzfeed's 16 LGBTQ-Authored Cookbooks To Feast From During Pride Month (Jessie Szewczyk's 2018 list), Tasty's: 18 LGBTQ-Penned Cookbooks To Cook From During Pride Month (Jessie Szewczyk's 2019 list), Chowhound's 14 Must-Have Cookbooks by LGBTQ+ Cooks (Simone Paget, 2020), Food and Wine's13 Cookbooks by LGBTQ+ Authors of Color to Buy Right Now (Justin Chapple, 2020), and Autostraddle's 7 Super Queer Cookbooks For Your Super Queer Kitchen! (Reneice Charles, 2018). These lists share cookbooks by LGBTQ+ authors, yet the cookbooks are not always explicitly queer in their content, their ties to other cookbooks, and the LGBTQ+ community. This exhibit is not interested in excluding cookbooks from these lists. However, this exhibit argues that while representation and authorship are important components for making a cookbook queer, they are not the only factor.

What Do Queer Cookbook Look Like?

Queer cookbooks range in their aesthetic choices, yet the use of images is prevalent. Whimsical illustrations such as the joyful fairies in The Gay of Cooking, the line drawings of Lou Rand Hogan’s chef swimming in fruit salad (32) (described as "campy cartoons" by David Costain), David Shenton’s stylized cartoon people cooking in The Queer Cookbook, and Isengart’s loose lined portraits adorn many of the cookbooks.

Cooking with Honey blends illustrations and photographs. Below is a photo that accompanied Jewelle Gomez's recipe and story about Pseudo-Vegetarian Chili. In the photograph, Gomez and her former partner Sandy Ross laugh together (100). Seven pages later, there is an illustration accompanying Diane Di Massa's chapter about her grandma's hot dogs and potatoes.

Community cookbooks with lower budgets tended to limit the use of images to save on costs whereas Tasty Pride (2020) has full-page, color photographs of every recipe.

Drag Queen Brunch (2020), likewise, has full-page photographs, mixing images of recipes and of the drag queens who shared them. The Rampart Street Stuffed Crab Recipe (139) accompanies a photograph of seven drag queens.

The whole cookbook is filled with bright colors and glossy photographs. Group photographs of drag queens enjoying the New Orleans recipes, such as the photograph next to "Grillades and Grits" (63) are intermixed with the food items themselves.

The cover matches the brightness and glossiness of the inside. The bright pink background pops against one of the most theatrical desserts of all time- a huge Baked Alaska. Any dish that requires putting ice cream in the oven matches the show-stopper tone of the rest of the cookbook's images.

Glossy photographs and high production are more common in the queer cookbooks published in the late 2010s and 2020s. Big Gay Ice Cream (2015) blends photographs of ice cream with photos of employees, friends, and collaborators in high school yearbook style spreads.

The yearbook design enables the founders of the Big Gay Ice Cream company, Bryan Petroff and Douglas Quint, to discuss their business history. They use a freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior model to explain the stages of their company as they moved from having an ice cream truck to having a storefront. This picture-heavy format enables them to showcase all of the people who made their business possible.

Utilizing popular cultural references (such as drawings of the character Dorothy from the television show Golden Girls) and a unicorn mascot, the authors can explain the steps they took to set up their business, including passing health inspections. The cookbook blends illustrations, pictures, and even comics! Following on the yearbook theme, the cookbook even includes a pull-out comic in the style of American high school yearbooks.

The recipes for ice cream are accompanied by full-page photographs of the food and even fun illustrations on the side, as was the case for the toasted curried coconut recipe (46-47).

The proprietors sometimes appear in the photographs alongside recipes. In the photograph next to the start of the float section, a full-page photograph depicts Bryan Petroff pouring grape soda into a cup full of ice cream. There is a note in handwriting that states "OOPs! Bryan really should be adding ice cream to soda, not soda to the ice cream!" (102). The authors keep a personable tone and whimsical style. The cover's ice cream cone is actually covered in glitter and shines in the sun.

Big Gay Ice Cream utilized author photos creatively. While even in lower budget cookbooks, author photos will sometimes be the only image to appear, Antoni Porowski’s Antoni in the Kitchen takes the author photo to a new level: almost half of the book is filled with photographs of him!

Amongst the many photos of Porowski are photos of food and cooking accouterment. There are also some photos of him shopping for food amongst the "thirst traps": photos intended to be admired for the subject's beautiful appearance.

Porowski's book does play with the ideas of seduction and food. Some queer cookbooks make this connection more explicit. Mixing culinary pleasures and erotic pleasures, FFiona Morgan's The Lesbian Erotic Cookbook (1998) is filled with nude, erotic photographs.

The cookbook brings together personal stories, erotic stories, and food.

Recipes are placed alongside illustrations and photographs of women kissing and being intimate.

The cookbook is printed with purple ink on white paper, a stylistic choice reminiscent of other queer cookbooks in this exhibit that used purple ink.

At times the photographs serve to illustrate the features of a recipe whereas sometimes they are merely decorative and celebrate lesbian bodies.

The recipe titles themselves also relate to the blend of erotic, sexual, and romantic content with titles such as "Be My Baby Tofu Mousse,""Say You Love Me Sorbet,""Arousal Applesauce Cake," and "Sherry Baby Zucchini Cake."

The blending of erotic photography and recipes also appears in this exhibit’s zines. The authors use images to mark the unique nature of each cookbook. Morgan printed the more than 250 recipes alongside erotic stories, poetry, and erotic photographs of lesbians.

In the case of Sweet and Salty, Lagusta Yearwood (2020) literally left her fingerprints on her text. She hand lettered parts of her cookbook and interwove highly stylized photographs of her vegan chocolates with those of her staff.

You can see some of this handwriting even on the cover of Lagusta Yearwood's cookbook.

In the introduction, Lagusta Yearwood shows photos of the chocolate shop's staff and describes her feminist anarchist vegan business principles and influences from the lesbian feminism of Noel Furie of Bloodroot Feminist Vegetarian Restaurant (the collective that made the Political Palate (1980) cookbook).

The introduction does not explicitly write out "this-is-a-queer-cookbook," yet the cookbook includes queer content throughout. For example, in the descriptions of the recipe for "Kate's Strawberry Seltzer Fizz Candies," Yearwood writes "How do I explain Kate to you in a way that will make you love her as I do, and want to make these candies in her honor? To start, we dated in a polyamorous way for three years, and we still work together, if that says anything about what a special human she is" (179).

The handwriting aesthetic and conversational-style text is throughout the book. On the page for Alexis' coconut chews (215), Yearwood brings together the handwritten text, stylized photograph of chocolates, and anecdote.

While there is not a single cohesive aesthetic between all of the cookbooks within this exhibit, the cookbooks use illustrations, photographs, images, color, and layout to emphasize the queerness of the cookbooks.

Recipes and the Role of Humour

There is not an exact recipe for a queer cookbook. Some are vegetarian (particularly lesbian cookbooks) and some have meat. Some recipes are written in paragraph form and serve to illustrate an author’s memoir. Some recipes are community sourced. Many of the recipe titles are straight-forward and tell readers about the dish. However several of the cookbooks and zines in this exhibit have humorous titles that utilize sexual innuendo.

The Gay Man’s Cookbook (2011) and The Gay of Cooking (1982), both primarily with gay men as target audiences, rely on raunchy puns for recipe titles. There are also jokes scattered in the cookbook such as "What does a Gay Man make for dinner? Reservations" (back cover).

The recipe for Grinder Granola (22) in Skyler Blue's The Gay Man's Cookbook is quite tame, compared to "Pounded Pancakes" (18), "Sausage Stuffing Balls"(2), "Bare-backed Avocado" (3), "Tight Bottom Taco Cups" (8), and "Morning Slammer" (26).

While some of the food puns work, some of the recipe titles are reaching to have a sexual innuendo or be sexually explicit such as "Wide Set Va-Jay-Jay Pita Breakfast" (31), "'BJ' Cucumber Salad" (39), "Smooth Porker" (48), and "Double- Penetrated Hamburger Pie" (56). Even the Table of Contents is hyper-sexual with "foreplay" for appetizers, "poppers" for breakfast, "twinks" for light main courses, "bear options" for meaty main courses, and "happy endings" for desserts.

Skylar Blue argues that "cooking like a Gay Man (emphasis in document) means being flexible, creative, and fun. It means using what's on hand and not being afraid to substitute ingredients. Cooking is like sex. If you come at it with the idea that it can be fun and creative, then suddenly it becomes the high point in your day instead of a chore" (iv). While this introduction does hint at the sexual innuendos to come, the rest of the introduction discusses the pleasures of cooking with family and friends. The recipe titles do try to employ humour and playfulness, yet sometimes the titles seem forced. Other recipe titles relied on racist, sexist, and fatphobic names such as the recipe title for tuna fish and salmon salad entitled "Vagina and Salmon Salad" (42), "Mail Order Slut" for a stir-fried beef recipe (43), "Asian Mini-Balls" (4) for chocolate snowballs, and "Chubby Chaser Cheese Soup"(5). Blue writes that he wants this book to help gay households spend time together, yet these titles limit the audiences who would find humor in the recipes. Some readers may find hyper-sexual framing to be fun while others might feel frustrated and find that the cookbook writers are playing into stereotypes of gay men as being over-sexed.

The Gay Man's Cookbook is part of a longer lineage of word-play in gay cookbooks; The Kitchen Fairy's The Gay of Cooking (1982) also employees sexual innuendo and puns. The word-play begins in the table of contents. Each section has a whimsical title and a translation "straight talk" is below it. For example, "A little starch will keep it stiff" is for Pasta, Rice, and Potatoes.

"Start Your Day with a Bang" is for Breakfasts and Brunches" (5).

The Kitchen Fairy explains in the introduction that "whipping, beating, creaming, kneading, rising, pinching, skinning, boning, boiling, brushing, blending, hardening, softening, rolling, rubbing, steaming, spooning, straining, stirring, greasing, poking, twisting, tossing and turningthat culminates in eating. Cooking is really no different from most Saturday nights" (7). Here the author brings together the erotic and cooking and makes the connection apparent. The illustrated fairy above these sentences enjoins readers to "Come out of the pantry and lay it on the table!" (7).

In fact, the author uses the introduction to make clear that there will be humour and playfulness in the construction of this book. The author further states "sweetips, you are what you eat. Which is exactly why I've written this cookbook (This fairy doesn't eat straight)"(8). The cookbook's author aims to fill in the gaps of what other straight cookbooks lack and has instructions for throwing the "perfect coming out party" and what to serve at the "next orgy (besides myself)" (7).

The recipes are meant to be fun, accessible, and simple to cook and the author's tone indicates this. The titles are also sexual, such as "Cream on a Cracker" (36), "A Paté on the Ass" (30), "Cock O'Van" (148). Unlike Blue's cookbook, there are not sexist or racist puns. There is word-play with the word "f*g" such as the recipe for "vinaigrette faggette" (90) and "faghetti" for spagetti (106), yet the Kitchen Fairy 's wordplay has the potential power to transform and reclaim the pejorative term. Similarly, the Kitchen Fairy plays with the sometimes pejorative "pouff" with the title "Pouffay Pudding" (168). There are also playful mentions of kink culture throughout.

The zines and periodicals from the AGQ and ALQ also play with recipe titles and recipe as a metaphor.

Vegetarianism

The queer cookbooks in this exhibit include vegetarian, meat, and vegan recipes. For some authors, including the Bloodroot Collective, being vegetarian was key to their lesbian feminism.

The Bloodroot Cookbooks

by the Bloodroot Collective, Sanguinaria Press

In addition to creating operating a feminist restaurant and bookstore since 1977, the Bloodroot Collective of Bridgeport, Connecticut, has written and published six vegetarian cookbooks. In their first cookbook, the Political Palate (1980), they wrote, “Feminism is not a part-time attitude for us; it is how we live all day, everyday. Our choices in furniture, pictures, the music we play, the books we sell, and the food we cook all reflect and express our feminism.” The long introductions in these cookbooks served to educate readers about how the Bloodroot Collective connected their philosophy of feminism, lesbianism, vegetarianism, and environmentalism.

Ideas about feminism and vegetarianism were in flux in the 1970s and 1980s, and these changes can be traced in looking at the six vegetarian cookbooks published by Bloodroot. In the early 1970s, in North America, a common definition of the vegetarianism that many left-leaning, predominantly white, activists subscribed to usually included eating fish. Bloodroot stopped serving fish in 1980 as ideas about vegetarianism began to shift. The restaurant also became increasingly vegan. This transition happened in part to the owners becoming more aware of environmental concerns over the dairy industry and also the needs and desires of their customer base. The collective had fifty-two vegan recipes out of 303 in its first book (published in 1980), fifty-five of 209 in the second (1984), and 138 of 227 or 85 percent in the third (1993).

Both The Political Palate and The Second Seasonal Political Palate have similar layouts. Each book has a cover adorned with the image of the Bloodroot plant; an introduction; a series of recipes organized by season with the first book being particularly specific with: late autumn, early winter, late winter, early spring, late spring, early summer, late summer, early autumn, as well as a special section for omelets, eggs, and breakfast and another for breads and the second book divided by autumn, winter, spring, and summer; and a bibliography. As the authors explain, the recipes are organized by season due to the availability of fresh and local available ingredients in Connecticut and that “we can consciously try to realign ourselves with the earth’s cycles. In this way, we may be able to discover the justice that exists in the real world of nature” (1980: xxii). Below the recipes are feminist quotations and occasionally accompanying artwork.

The later books include photographs of the dishes, but the first two books include photographs for the purpose of art or honouring individuals with their portraits. In the first book, the prefatory materials include information about the G. Knapp Historical Society which met at the Bloodroot restaurant on Wednesday evenings to commemorate the death of Elizabeth Knapp and all of the other witches who were tortured and died before and after her, accused of witchcraft as a crime (1980: xxi). In the second book, this section is replaced by a reprint of the Spanish children’s fable “Las (sic) Viajeras”(The Travelers), kept in Spanish and introduced with the note: “Those of you who don’t understand Spanish should find a friend who does” (1984: xxxi).

The authors of the first book, Betsey Beaven, Noel Giodano, Selma Miriam, and Noel Furie explain the reason their endeavors are named after the Bloodroot or Sanguinaria canadensis eastern woodland wildflower; they noted that they found a powerful symbol in the bloodroot flower whose rhizomes grow deep and form a network with their kin in order to help the community thrive. Photos of the authors’ mothers sit alongside the title page and the book is dedicated to one mother, “Fay Davidson” in particular, who, according to the authors “took cooking and reading seriously and believed in the necessity of a political consciousness. A suffragist, she had mixed feelings about the second wave [of feminism] yet did much to make Bloodroot possible” (1980). The second book is dedicated to Alicia “who understands the necessity of a woman’s space, whose rage confirms ours, who has struggled with us over differences in our mutual attempt to understand issues between us and events in our movement” (1984). The emphasis on tying together food, feminism, and the role of women in the community continues into the bibliographies that are divided between “favorite cooking resources” and an eight page in the first book and fourteen page in the second, sectioned “Feminist Bibliography: Food for Thought: A Subjective List.” The second book also includes a glossary of ingredients. While lesbian feminist content is woven throughout the text, the nine-page introduction in the first book and the twenty-nine page introduction of the second book explicitly explains how a cookbook and food can be feminist. Both books holistically integrate a gendered analysis, a discussion of racial and ethnic differences in the Blackrock neighborhood of their Bridgeport location, and strong ties to the connection between the earth, food, and nature.

The feminist, women-only collective of Bloodroot used food as a way to create community, advocate for labour rights, and promote environmentalism. Dozens of restaurant reviews showed that Bloodroot challenged the misconception that vegetarian food was bland and stated that Bloodroot served delicious food; one example was Joan Cook’s 1982 article in the New York Times, “Feminists Publish a Cookbook.” The Bloodroot Collective cookbook relied on the knowledge of family recipes and a wide variety of flavourful ethnic vegetarian foods. Recipes include molasses apple gingerbread, potato latkes, artichoke mushroom soup, rhubarb custard pie, blueberry peach sundae, baba ghanouj, Syrian baked stuffed eggplant, and fried mozzarella in caper miso sauce. The collective was against health food faddism, remarking on how “in the past eight years, Bloodroot customer concern has passed from issues such as why isn’t all our flour whole wheat to why don’t we have wheatless bread” (1984; viii). The collective likewise remarked that dieting and fat shaming rhetoric was a result of the patriarchy and women’s internalized body self hate (1984; xii). Instead, for the Bloodroot Collective, a key aspect of its politics was “our food must be (taste) wonderful” (1980: xvi). Preparing nourishing food was integral to both collectives’ feminisms.

The Bloodroot Collective emphasized the importance of the ingredients that they used in their restaurants and why home cooks using their cookbooks should follow suit. The collective bought local and seasonal produce whenever possible and organized their cookbook to reflect when certain ingredients were ripest. For the collective, lesbian “feminist food is seasonal. We use what’s close at hand, what is most fresh and local and therefore least expensive and least 'preserved'” (1980:xi). The decision to make their cookbook seasonal stemmed from the fact that “our lives are so disconnected from organic or natural timekeeping and the best efforts of the earth, that once we enter the sterile world of pre-packaged supermarkets that strawberries and tomatoes are not worth eating in January and that onion soup and oranges don’t make sense in August”(1980: xii). The Bloodroot writers emphasized, “We don’t compromise quality. We hope you don’t need to either” (1980: xviii). Quality vegetarian ingredients appeared in both collectives’ cookbooks.

Vegetarian cooking was integral to the collective's feminism and environmentalism. Bloodroot's cookbook explained, “Our food is vegetarian because we are feminists. We are opposed to the exploitation, domination, and destruction, which come from factory farming and the hunter with the gun. We oppose the keeping and killing of animals for the pleasure of the palate just as we oppose men controlling abortion or sterilization. We won’t be part of the torture and killing of animals” (1980:xi). In a footnote, the authors wrote that Elizabeth Fisher’s work on the connections between the oppression of animals and women and philosopher Peter Singer’s work on ethical vegetarianism inspired them. Food was integral to the collective and in the cookbooks.

The Bloodroot cookbooks emphasized the role feminism played in the collective's work and the relationship to food and environmentalism. The Bloodroot Collective emphasized the connection between their work and feminism. In the Second Seasonal Political Palate, the authors wrote that “feminism proceeds into the eighties as nuclear proliferation grows, acid rain and general pollution worsen, and the escalation of everyday violence against women and children continues” (1984: iii). For the authors, a feminist movement “requires vision and persistence as well as a recognition of the ways patriarchy can divide us.” (1984:iv). They likewise wrote that “we believe feminist goals must be to reconnect with living creatures and the earth, to try to lead self-sustaining lives with some understanding of the lives of other humans, creatures, and of the earth” (1984:v). For the Bloodroot Collective, making feminist food meant incorporating anti-racist work into feminist ideology. Remarking on feminism and racism, 1984 collective member Betsey Beaven wrote, “part of the destructiveness of racism which operates daily in white women’s lives is the power they old in deciding whether or not they wish to hear the voices of women of color. In the women’s movement of the 1980s’s, our actions, and our movements (particularly those of us who are white feminists demand conscious resistance to our own ignorance” (1984:xxvii). Such commentary on racism did not exist in many of the cookbooks in this exhibit.

Centering collective workplace practices was integral to the collective's lesbian feminism and environmentalism. Bloodroot’s writers shared that “we cook as a way to survive economically, yet our cooking is part of our study, our living, and our politics. It seems to us that there is no separation between art and politics; there is integrity, which requires judgments and a value system underlying our work and our lives. Everything we do is the result” (1980: xvi). In their second cookbook, the writers elaborated when they quoted Audre Lorde’s piece “Uses of the Erotic: the Erotic as Power,” writing, “as women, we need to examine the ways in which our world can be truly different. I am speaking here of the necessity for reassessing the very quality of all the aspects of our lives and our work” (1984; xxiii). As they elaborated: “We choose work we believe in. For us, this kind of work, living and time spent is breath and blood” (1984: xxiii). In their lives, business, and writings, the collective had a holistic approach to work, feminism, and politics.

In the most explicit connection to lesbian feminism, the authors of the Bloodroot cookbooks included numerous feminist quotations within their prefatory sections and beneath recipes throughout the texts. The authors explained, “When we began, we had little enthusiasm for the effort [of writing the cookbook] until we realized that to “feed” you, we had to tell you what feeds us. Without our best loved treasures- the resources in our bookstore to think about, talk about and try to live by- our long hours of cooking and cleaning are drudgery. The songs, poems, stores and ideas are necessary to our lives; we hope to awaken your interest in them, and that you will pursue them beyond the small tastes we offer here” (1980: xix). The Bloodroot cookbooks likewise acted as a means for spreading the work and theory of other feminists. The members of Bloodroot believed that “part of the work here is to provide ground for radical consciousness: the discovery of hope, the movement of courage, and the possibility of willing the Self to act with moral intelligence” (1984: xxv). In doing so, they also promoted the work practices, art, music, and projects of other feminists with shared philosophies.

The tradition of producing explicitly vegetarian and vegan lesbian feminist cookbooks has continued. After the publication of The Political Palate (1980) and The Second Seasonal Palate (1984), members of the Bloodroot Collective, released more cookbooks in 1993, 1997, two in 2008, and one in 2018. Like their previous books, these books included introductions that explicitly linked food, feminism, vegetarianism, environmentalism, and social justice. Lagusta Yearwood of Lagusta’s Luscious Feminist Vegan Chocolate Shop and Commissary assisted in writing the two Bloodroot cookbooks from 2008 and in 2018. Yearwood later released Sweet and Salty (2019), her own cookbook based on recipes from her feminist anarchist vegan chocolate shop and commissary.

Alcohol

Donna Clark writes in The Queer Cookbook (1997), "straights have punch, we have cocktails." The idea of the queer cocktail is so prevalent that Lewis Laney published a cocktail-focused cookbook, Queer Cocktails: 50 Cocktail Recipes Celebrating Gay Icons and Queer Culture (2021).

Many of the texts in this exhibit include cocktail sections, including The Butch Cookbook (2 drink recipes with alcohol in the "love potions (drinks)" section (2008); Drag Queen Brunch (cocktail recipes are sprinkled throughout the book) (2020); Cooking with Honey (1 cocktail) (1996); The Gay Cookbook (Chapter 13: Drunks and Drinks (1965); The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook (most of the recipes for cocktails come from the "Recipes From Friends" section) (1954); The Queer Cookbook has a wine guide by Steve Pearson (125-127) and a "Queer Cocktail" section (162-164) (1997); Cooking with Pride has a beverage chapter (1989); and The Gay of Cooking (1982) has a chapter entitled "Cock Tails and Whore d'oeuvres. Party! Party! Party" (15-40).

The relationship between queer communities and alcohol is a complicated one. As discussed in numerous histories of queer socializing in the United States and Canada such as George Chauncey's Gay New York (1995) and Madeline D. Davis and Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy's Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community (1993), bars have played an important role in the formation and maintenance of LGBTQIA2S+ communities. However, when so much socializing happened in bars, concerns surrounding over-consumption of alcohol and alcoholism have led to the creation of more sober spaces, particularly lesbian spaces.

How Have Queer Cookbooks Changed Over Time? And Their Legacies

Queer cookbooks have changed over time. As evident in the many examples discussed above, Alice B. Toklas's cookbook has had a significant impact in bringing memoir to the queer cookbook genre (as well as cookbooks outside of the queer category).

Another mid-century text had a significant impact. Chef Lou Rand Hogan's The Gay Cookbook (1965) set important precedents and, as such, has received academic and journalistic attention. Lou Rand Hogan was not a real person. Hogan was a pen name for Louis Randall. According to journalist Anne Ewbank in "Years Before Stonewall, a Chef Published the First Gay Cookbook," Hogan/Randall was interested in theater but after an unsuccessful career, began working as a steward and cook on the new luxury Matson cruise ship line in 1936, where he learned to cook. As Erin Blakemore explains in "In the Gay Cookbook, Domestic Bliss Was Queer," the cookbook promoted the idea of a gay domesticity, a stark contrast to the places where gay men had long come together in public spaces, endangered by police surveillance." Journalist Daniel Villarreal adds in "Four Years Before Stonewall, ‘The Gay Cookbook’ Showed a Never-Before-Seen Side of Homosexual Life" that while The Gay Cookbook received unprecedented publicity, was picked up by two mainstream publishers and sold an estimated 10,000–12,000 copies, "the book also had its flaws: It purely targeted white gay consumers, presenting people of color as illustrated caricatures." Scholar Stephan Vider in “'Oh Hell, May, Why Don’t You People Have a Cookbook?': Camp Humor and Gay Domesticity" (2013) discusses both Hogan's cookbook and column, writing “In one column titled “fabulous curries,” [Hogan] called on readers to pay more attention to “Eastern dishes,” moving swiftly from the culinary to the sexual: “There is a general idea that all Oriental numbers are small ‘appetizers.’ Well, ’t’aint necessarily so.” He went on to literally size up various groups of Asian and Southeast Asian men, determining who was and was not “well-equipped, both physically and erotically, to please a busy palate." (896). Vider continues, "These newly aggressive fantasies about foreign men of color reflected the Advocate and urban gay culture’s increasing consolidation of the homosexual’s presumed racial, class, and gender privilege—white, middle class, and masculine” (896). The racism within Hogan's cookbook was not unique to its time as 56 years later, Skylar Blue in The Gay Man's Cookbook also used racist and orientalist tropes.

The Gay Cookbook employed narrative form, humor, puns, and sexual innuendo. In "Chapter 7: What to Do With a Tough Piece of Meat" (89), Hogan uses illustrations and jokes about "bringing home meat." He then describes how to buy meat from a butcher, how to garnish steak, how to make steak sauces, and more. The style may be campy but the information is quite practical. This mix of whimsy and practicality appears in subsequent cookbooks.

Some cookbook authors make clear that they view their cookbook as part of a longer lineage of queer cookbooks.

The dedication in The Butch Cook Book (2008) already indicates how the authors Lee Lynch, Nel Ward, and Sue Hardesty see their cookbook as a part of the butch lesbian community and part of a longer lineage. The dedication reads "To all the butches who made this book what it is. You know who you are."

The acknowledgement shows that this cookbook used lesbian content from numerous lesbian authors. This decision is similar to Cookin' With Honey (1996) including the words of lesbian authors and the Bloodroot cookbooks including quotations from lesbians on recipe pages.

In the introduction, Sue Hardesty writes that the cookbook is "offered up as a validation of who we are" and "represents the many faces of our butchness" (iii). Hardesty explains that "We all find our way to belong. Probably the most surprising thing is that butches can cook, REALLY COOK, as many of the recipes will show. We expected the joke recipes and got some. But for the most part, these butches are serious about their food" (iii). Again, this cookbook emphasizes the community in the cookbook. The note about the quality of cooking appears again in the Foreword when the authors explain that when they solicited recipes they were worried they would get "30 recipes for boxed mac and cheese" (i).

The authors also explain that the point of the cookbook "is for butches. Our intent is to honor them, to shine a light on these incredibly brave women who, alone and with no guidance, have struggled to learn who they are, struggled to accept who they are, and dared to live and love. Here we offer proof of our commonality and of our womanhood: our recipes" (ii).

As part of seeing the cookbook as part of a longer legacy of lesbian cookbooks, there is a section entitled "Cookbooks from Lesbians" that mentions a few of the cookbooks in this exhibit: Toklas's work, of course, Ffiona Morgan's The Lesbian Erotic Cookbook, Cookin' with Honey, and Fannie Flagg's Original Whistle Stop Café Cookbook.

As part of its reference to the legacy of lesbian and queer cookbooks, this cookbook still includes humor in its introductions. The amuse bouche recipe also includes references to sex and intimacy with the line "before she's even got her coat off, you wanna pop something tasty into her mouth" (4). The book cover pokes fun at itself with the toy truck and the "semi-sweet" chocolate chips.

The inside cover even includes an illustration of a u-haul/ moving truck (a nod to the joke about lesbian women moving in together quickly).

Queer cookbooks have changed in some significant ways. The production value has generally increased. There tend to be more glossy images. Recipes tend to be written by authors under their actual names as more LGBTQIA2S+ people are out.

The legacies of humor, community sourced recipes, and queer authors endure.

Queer Periodicals and Zines with Recipes

The below selection of zines are not cookbooks per se, but they are LGBTQIA2S+ zines with recipes in them. These recipes mix actual ingredients with metaphor-- and are all a treat!

The first three zines come from the Archives Gaies du Québec. I am so grateful to the archivists for loaning them to me for the exhibit. These three zines are all from the Namaste “Zine” Collection.

Hot Lip, 1991, Chicago, Illinois

Hot Lip was a zine "for the rambunctuous lesbian." As the table of contents shows, the zine is filled with stories, editorials, art, and on pages 24 and 25, recipes.

The recipes mix recipes for actual dishes and recipes for sexual pleasure (that involves food).

The recipe for Abracadabra's Lusty Linguine begins as a pretty typical pasta recipe with steps to boil linguine and cover with olive, herbs, spices, and cheese. The recipe continues with instructions for how to consume the dish: "Take it to bed and eat it with your girlfriend and your fingers that still smell like her." The recipe ends with a pop culture reference to a Meryl Steep movie, "Defending Your Life."

For those that have not seen the 1991 film that Hot Lips is referencing, in the above film still, you can see that Meryl Steep has pasta dangling from her mouth while smiling.

The next recipe in the zine is for Mmmmangos which is more a set of instructions for eating mango. It is written in a manner to inspire the reader to think about cunnilingus.

The first recipe on page 25 is a set of instructions about where to place a mint. The second recipe is more of an ode to the exciting experience of not knowing donut fillings.

This set of recipes is less about food but instead centers experience and pleasure. The Hot Lips zine mixes the sensual experiences of eating, sex, and intimacy. Queer cookbooks and queer recipes range in their explicitness about sexuality and ties to kink culture.

Diseased Pariah News (DPN), Issue # 2, 1991, editors: Beowulf Thorne and Thomas Shearer, San Francisco, California

DPN was a quarterly publication of, by, and for people with HIV. As the first page explains, "We are a forum for infected people to share their thoughts, feelings, art, writing, and brownie recipes in an atmosphere free of teddy bears, magic rocks, and sero-negative guilt." The publication was primarily targeted towards HIV positive gay men and included nude photographs of men amongst the other materials.

Here the recipes are not a metaphor for sex. Rather the recipes are centered on the nutritional needs of HIV positive people. The title of the section is "Get Fat, Don't Die." The section includes tips for overcoming nausea and diarrhea, common occurrences for HIV positive people. As the authors write, "depending on the individual, [these symptoms] can be caused by germs, medications for those germs, or both" (23).

After a list of tips, Danny Mae shares family recipes for gumbo, roast chicken, and two high-calorie shakes. The recipes are pretty straight-forward except that the asterisk next to the line "Bone it when done" is explained jokingly as "Take the bones out, that is." This moment of playfulness and sexual innuendo in the chicken recipe stands apart from the rest of the section.

Below the recipes is an advertisement soliciting more assistance from readers. Apart from seeking more recipes, the editors sought "a few more bubble-butt surfboy slaves" to help with distribution of the publication. Here the editors use vernacular from kink sub-cultures, accompanied by a photo of a man's butt. Jonathan Kaufman has written a piece on the history of DPN here (2020): https://hazlitt.net/longreads/get-fat-dont-die.

The focus on gaining weight is echoed in Sheila Murphy's Healthy Eating Makes a Difference: A Food Resource Book for People Living with HIV. Please note that this cookbook is from Ketchum's collection and not from the AGQ.

Healthy Eating Makes a Difference: A Food Resource Book for People Living with HIV

by dietician Sheila Murphy in conjunction with Health and Welfare Canada, the National AIDS Strategy, and the Canadian Hemophilia Society in 1993

This cookbook is not explicitly a queer cookbook. Anyone can contract HIV and get AIDS. However, as evidenced in the DPN zine, as the HIV epidemic disproportionately impacted (and continues to impact) gay men, bisexual men, and transgender women, it was important to share recipes and nutritional information relevant to those living with it.

The cookbook is filled with meat, dairy, and vegetarian recipes. Each recipe has its own page. As noted in the DPN # 2, shakes could be useful meal supplements when eating was too painful. There is also information about meal planning, avoiding miracle cures, and other health information.

This cookbook raises the question of intended audience. If many queer people read a cookbook, does it then become a queer cookbook? What is the role of the author here in terms of which audience is intended?

Fuzz Box, Montreal, undated (1990s)

(back cover)

Fuzz Box is a bilingual (french and english) LGBTQ+ zine that included erotic horoscopes (eroscopie), calls to ACT UP Against AIDS, naked photos, interviews, a glossary, and music playlists. There are advertisements for rubber clothing and Montreal bars and events, including the Drag Leather Ball at Candy Bar. Fuzz Box utilized a collage and cut and paste aesthetic in which texts and images were laid on top of one another in a copy machine.

The zine also included a page with recipes "to impress your special date" even when someone did not have a lot of time to cook. Author of this section, Patrick Meausette, suggests eggplant for hors d'ouvre, juicy chicken salsa, green salad, and a fruity cobbler. The recipes are pretty standard: ingredients and instructions. The queer dynamic can be found in the sentences that frame the recipes. For example, when Meausette writes that "the way to a man's heart is through their stomach" he says that his "special date" is another man. There is also an element of humor and playfulness in the recipes, when the author recommends baking the cobbler until it has that "Florida holiday tan look."

Despite the overtly sexual content within Fuzz Box, the recipes in this zine are not as explicitly erotic as some of the other zines. The only sexual innuendo comes from the note at the end "Hope your dinner is a success and never do the dishes untill (sic) the next day. There are better things to do after dinner." However, the erotic photos of men with food on the next page amplify the eroticism. Fuzz Box demonstrates that making a recipe queer can come from the framing of the recipe, the relationships with community, the publication in which the recipe is published, and the illustrations and images that surround it.

An interesting pattern also emerges in the way that salad dressing is described. Within Fuzz Box, the author notes the "fancy prepared dressing" and within the DPN for the simple salad, Danny-Mae suggests that the simple salad be "smoothered in high calorie dressing" (24).

The recipes include meat and dairy, yet later in the zine, there is a letter which asks "is veganism "in" in the 90s?"

(letter asks about veganism)

The zine seems to playfully respond that even if readers go vegan, men are still meat (and thus are still on the menu for some readers). On one page, a photograph of a man in a thong swimsuit and sailor hat is layered on top of erotic text. From the man, there is a voice bubble that states "I'm not a human being. I'm just a piece of meat." Another set of text claims: "meat. How men look, act, walk, dress, undress, taste and smell."

Fuzz Box ties together food and eroticism in more than just its recipes.

___________________________

The next set of publications come from Les Archives Lesbiennes du Québec: La Fricassée (published between 1982-1983), Les Ailes D'Angele # 1, Il Pleut des Goines #3, and Les Sourcières (1981-1982) .

In the physical exhibit, only issue # 1 of La Fricassée, Les Ailes D'Angèle # 1, and Il Pleut des Goines #3 are shown. Below I have included other examples. To see the entire collections of these zines and periodicals, make an appointment to visit the archives.

La Fricassée, Montreal, 1982-1983

(cover of issue # 1)

La Fricassée was a "feuille (ou deux) fidele, volante absolument gracieuse, imprevue et toujours tres se-pieuse. On la trouve dans la boite a malle, dans la poche d'une amie ou dans toutes les kiosques affichant pour (women symbols) seulment" (a sheet (or two) faithful, absolutely graceful, unforeseen, and always very serious. It can be found in the trunk box, in the pocket of a friend or in any kiosk displaying for lesbians only" (1). There was information about local lesbian events, art, songs, photos, and opinion pieces. By issue #6, Montreal lesbian bars such as La Paryse and Bar Labrys began to advertise in the zine/leaflet.

(edition 7, page 3)

Here you can see the advertisements in issue # 7 alongside a recipe for oignonnes-vinagerette. The recipe includes a pretty standard ingredient list with instructions for preparation. The personal touch is the note that "marie oueligne préfère l'huile l'olive italienne à greque" (Marie Oueligne prefers italian olive oil to greek). This line gestures towards the role of cooking with friends and sharing recipes with friends- a theme in many of the queer cookbooks.

This recipe was in the recurring segment that appeared in most editions of La Fricassée: "Dans Nos Chaudronnes" (in our cauldrons). In the first edition, the recipe was for how to reuse "les fameuses petits pois a la jusquiame" (henbane peas) The recipe is included with a note that "il est preferable de consommer qu'une ou deux petits pois per mois, surtout ne pas en abuser" (only eat one or two peas a month, don't abuse it). Henbane at high doses can cause hallucinations and at high enough doses, death.

(issue # 2, blanching tomatoes)

In later editions, the cauldron recipes focused more on blanching tomatoes (issue # 2), making ketchup (issue #3), and confiture (issue # 4).

(ketchup recipe, issue # 3)

(confiture recipe, issue # 4)

While there are subsequent recipes for easing winter cold, most of the recipes are for food. In a later edition, Madelina supplies tofu recipes.

La Fricassée focused on vegetarian recipes. The use of the cauldron comes up repeatedly in the many editions of Les Sourcières but there it is usually about explicit spell-casting rather than cooking (with some exceptions).

(from issue 1)

Les Sourcières (1981-1982), Montreal

Les Sourcières was addressed "à des femmes a la recherche de leurs énergies propres; des femmes qui veulent faire ce cheminement avec d'autre(sic) femmes, et avec des femmes seulement, à la lumière des déesses, des héroïnes du passé, du présent et du futur" (This magazine is aimed at women in search of their own energies; women who want to make this journey with other women, and with women only, in the light of goddesses, heroines of the past, of the present and of the future). The publication included information about goddesses, plants, herbs, and local Montreal events.

The Sourcière de cuisine (in the kitchen) section in edition # 3 focused on cooking, but primarily for herbal remedies.

While it is not a recipe per se, there was still an interest in food. In the edition #4, there was information about creating a balcony garden. While there is not much access for many Montrealers to garden space, balconies are common features in many Montreal apartments.

There were also instructions for growing your own sprouts and references to balcony farming in edition #9.

Other lesbian publications in Montreal played with the genre of recipe.

Les Ailes D'Angèle, Montreal, 1982

Les Ailes D'Angèle # 1 was published in Montreal in June 1982 and was a zine for "juste des filles, juste des filles en moto, être complices ensembles" (just the girls, just the girls on bikes, to be accomplices together). It was a "dykes on bikes" group. France Grenier writes in the editorial that the writers and readers of the zine "on est des filles qui aiment rouler en moto, on est des filles qui aiment rouler ensemble, on est des filles qui aiment s'amuser, on est les "ailes d'Angèle"" (we are girls who like to ride our motorcycles (bikes), we are girls who like to ride together, we are girls that like to have a good time, we are angel wings." The zine contains information about where and how to ride motorcycles, motorcycle parts, a crossword puzzle, songs, and photographs of the ailes d'Angèle.

In addition to writing quiz questions, including diagrams for women to label, and having other fun ways to explain the content, the authors wrote a metaphorical recipe for "gateau a la motarde" (biker cake). The ingredients include the components a biker needs for an outing.

The instructions are written like a standard recipe with recommended temperatures and the steps a biker would need to follow. There is also a recipe for a side car-- an actual cocktail! This zine uses recipe as a metaphor. While Toklas played with genre by blending memoir and recipe in paragraph form, this zine uses recipe formats to convey other information. It is not alone in the category of queer metaphorical recipes.

___

Il Pleut des Gouines #3 by Lola Gouine, Montreal 2006

The comic zine Il Pleut des Gouines #3 (it's raining dykes) from November 2006 follows some of the patterns of queer recipes but also challenges some. Lola Gouine, from France, created a special Montreal issue in which she combines comics, zine reviews, and a glossary in a mix between french, english, and franglais.

In her glossary, she explains why she never uses the word "queer" in the zine due to the word's connotations in France: "#Queer: you never read this word in the zine? i refuse to use it. In France the word queer is full of rainbowmoney-capitalistfashion-pink.tv that sells very well at every white handome homo's home. God saves the queer, the post-oppression and the post-reality, but not me, thanx, i'll do it on my own." So while this is definitely a lesbian or "dyke" or "gouine" zine, is it a queer zine? Not according to the author. It is worth including in this exhibit however because it points to the challenges of defining "queer recipes" and "queer cookbooks."

One of her comics is "Comment faire 1 gâteau lesbian? recette risquée de Lola Gouine" (How to make a lesbian cake: a risky recipe from Lola Gouine/Dyke). The four page comic (28-31) humorously describes the process of making a cake. The author emphasizes the importance of reading the recipe even though she claims that lesbians will want to mix things up and change the ingredients. She writes "Prenez soin de faire lire la recette à vos copines lesbiennes (toutes les lesbiennes savent que les lesbiennes aiment changer les choses établies)."

The figures in the comic keep trying to eat the chocolate and taste the ingredients before the recipe is done. The author claims that this is key to the experience of creating a lesbian cake.

She writes that for a cake to be lesbian, it has to be 1) made by lesbians, 2) eaten by lesbians, and 3) that lesbians like to mix things up (either the process or the ingredients). Therefore, she implies that the cakes might always be different.

Visit the archives to see more exciting LGBTQIA2S+ zines, periodicals, and more!

The making of the exhibit

Below are some images of the early production of the exhibit.

I first drew out my initial ideas for the display cases. Next, I measured out most of the books and zines and made a new mock up on Adobe Illustrator so I could anticipate exactly what types of paper and materials I would need for the exhibit.

As you can see, by measuring everything, I had to move some sections around to fit within the display cases.

Display Case # 1

Display Case # 2

I, then, created the text specific to the physical exhibit, laid out the posters in Adobe Illustrator, ordered book stands online, and acquired acetate to wrap the books so they stay open on specific pages. Picking up the posters from the printer was an exciting experience (and, of course, I noticed a typo immediately!)

Pictures from the Physical Exhibit at McGill University

Display Case # 1

Display Case # 2

Here are closer images of the purple posters:

and here are the cases in the hallway:

While I haven't been able to discuss every queer cookbook ever made, the cookbooks in this digital exhibit are the ones in my personal collection and the zines are from the AGQ and ALQ. For an expanded list of queer cookbooks, please see the bibliography for more! You can even check out a 2019 post that I wrote for The Historical Cooking Project on lesbian and queer cookbooks. See also the work of Rachel Hope Cleaves on the Whoever Said Dykes Can't Cook cookbook and sociologist Stacey Williams has also discussed the Cincinnati Lesbian Activist Bureau’s 1983 cookbook Whoever Said Dykes Can’t Cook? (2014: 59).

Bibliography

(thank you to Jacqueline Lee-Tam for your assistance with the bibliography)

Armstead, Jenice. Lesbians Have to Eat, Too! Self Published, CreateSpace, 2011.

Armstead, Jenice. Lesbians Have to Eat, 2!: More Stories, Memories & Thoughts in Food. Self Published, CreateSpace, 2011.

The Bloodroot Collective. The Political Palate. Bridgeport: Sanguinaria Publishing, 1980.

The Bloodroot Collective. The Second Seasonal Political Palate. Bridgeport: Sanguinaria Publishing, 1984.

The Bloodroot Collective. The Perennial Political Palate: The Third Feminist Vegetarian Cookbook. Bridgeport: Sanguinaria Publishing, 1993.

The Bloodroot Collective. Addendum to the Political Palate Series. Bridgeport: Sanguinaria Publishing, 1997.

Blue, Skylar. The Gay Man’s Cookbook: It’s a Way of Life!!! Self Published, CreateSpace, 2011.

Brown, Sarah E. The Queer Vegan Cookbook. Self-Published, 2013.

Clark, Donna, and David Shenton. The Queer Cookbook. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1997.

Cooking With Trans People of Colour. Toronto: Self-Published, 2021.

Doroshow, Ceyenne. Cooking in Heels: A Memoir Cookbook. Brooklyn: Self-published, Red Umbrella Project, 2012.

Flagg, Fannie. Fanni Flagg’s Original Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook. New York: Ballantine Books, 1995.

Fuller, Brad. The Men of Fire Island Present Hot Cookin. Austin: Mystic Cowboy Press, 1994.

The Gay Gardeners Garden Club. Bouquet of Recipes. Columbia: Self-published, 1962.

Gillow, Kim (ed.). The Lesbiliscious Cookbook. Ovett: Self-published, 2000.

Hardesty, Sue, Nel Ward, and Lee Lynch. The Butch Cook Book. Newport: TRP Cookbooks, 2008.

Hart, Hannah. My Drunk Kitchen: A Guide to Eating, Drinking, and Going With Your Gut. New York: HarperCollins, 2014.

Hogan, Lou Rand. The Gay Cookbook. Shelburne: Shelburne Press, 1965.

Hot Lip, The Three Times is the Charm Ish, undated.

Isengart, Daniel. The Art of Gay Cooking: A Culinary Memoir. San Francisco: Outpost19, 2018.

Jenkins, Nicholas. Fuzz Box. Montreal, undated (1990s).

The Kitchen Fairy. Be Gay! Eat Gay!: The Gay of Cooking. Laguna Beach: Fairy Publications, 1982.

Laney, Lewis (ed.). Queer Cocktails: 50 cocktail recipes celebrating gay icons and queer culture. London: Ryland Peters & Small, 2021.

Lesbians For Change. Tasty Lesbian Dishes. Albuquerque: Self-published, 1997.

Lindgren, Don. UNXLD: American Cookbooks of Community and Place. Biddeford, Maine: Rabelais Books, 2018.

Merrin, Adam, and Ryan Alvarez. Husbands that Cook. New York City: St. Martin’s Press, 2019.

Moskowitz, Ron. Out of Our Kitchen Closets: San Francisco Gay Jewish Cooking. San Francisco: Self-published, 1987.

Miriam, Selma, and Noel Furie. The Best of Bloodroot, Volume One: Vegetarian Recipes. Bridgeport: Anomaly Press, 2007.

Miriam, Selma, and Noel Furie. The Best of Bloodroot Volume Two: Vegan Recipes. Bridgeport: Anomaly Press, 2008.

Miriam, Selma, and Noel Furie. The Bloodroot Calendar Cookbook. Bridgeport: Anomaly Press, 2018.

Morgan, Ffiona. The Lesbian Erotic Cookbook. Novato: Daughters of the Moon Publishing, 1998.

Mueller, Carl. Le Gay Gourmet. West Hollywood: Data-Boy Instant Press, 1983.

Murphy, Sheila. Healthy Eating Makes a Difference: A Food Resource Book for People LIving with HIV. Ottawa: Health and Welfare Canada, 1993.

North, Christopher. But Can She Cook? Toronto: Bittersweet Press, 1993.

Parsons, Leatherella O. Cooking With Pride. Baltimore, Maryland: Act One, 1989.

Petroff, Bryan, and Douglas Quint. Big Gay Ice Cream: Saucy Stories & Frozen Treats: Going All the Way with Ice Cream. New York City: Clarkson Potter, 2015.

Porowski, Antoni. Antoni in the Kitchen. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019.

Ramstetter, Victoria, and May Contenta. Whoever said Dykes Can’t Cook? Cincinnati: Dinah, 1983.

Scholder, Amy. Cookin’ with Honey, what Literary Lesbians Eat. Ithaca: Firebrand Books, 1996.

Sindaco, Angelo. Cooking With the Bears. Rome: Drago international publishing house, 2014.

Szewczyk, Jesse. Tasty Pride: 75 Recipes and Stories from the Queer Food Community. New York City: Clarkson Potter, 2020.

Thorne, Beowulf, Tom Shearer, Tom Ace, and Michael Botkin. Jessie Piss, Diseased Pariah News #2. San Francisco, undated (1990s).

Toklas, Alice B. The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book. New York City: Harper & Brothers, 1954.

Tooker, Poppy. Drag Queen Brunch. New Orleans: Pelican Publishing Company, 2019.

Turshen, Julia. Feed the Resistance: Recipes and Ideas for Getting Involved. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2017.

von Campe, Honey. The Drag Queen’s Cookbook & Guide to Sensible Living. New Orleans: Pontalba Press, 1996.

Digitized "What's the Recipe for a Queer Cookbook" Exhibit

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