The authors of two June releases share their perspectives on underexplored dimensions of American gastronomic history: John Birdsall, whose What Is Queer Food? (Norton) examines how Alice B. Toklas, James Baldwin, Truman Capote, and others developed queer communities and influenced food culture, and Erik Piepenburg, who profiles Connecticut lesbian vegan eateries, Milwaukee sports bars, the Hamburger Mary’s franchise, and more in Dining Out (Grand Central).
What sparked your book?
Birdsall: In 2013, I wrote a piece called “America, Your Food Is So Gay” for Lucky Peach that made some ripples. It asked why many influential 20th-century male food writers—James Beard, Richard Olney, and Craig Claiborn—were gay but also couldn’t acknowledge their sexuality because of the times. Writing [the Beard biography] The Man Who Ate Too Much freed me to start thinking in a bigger way about the cultural history and emotional meaning of queer contributions to the kitchen, the literature of cookbooks, and food writing.
Piepenburg: After the Melrose Diner in Chicago closed, I realized that the gay restaurants that I’d grown up with and that were part of my own coming-of-age were disappearing. In 2021, I pitched my editor at the New York Times a story about the state of gay restaurants that grew from that sense of loss and curiosity. I talked to so many people who had memories of their own gay restaurants that I decided to turn it into a book.
What did you learn in your research?
Piepenburg: The gay community is good about remembering and archiving gay bars. Gay restaurants have not been important spaces to those keepers of history. I hope that this book changes that. I made sure to go to small towns. There’s an entire chapter in my book dedicated to a restaurant in Green Bay, Wis. I’m from Cleveland, and I write about what it was like for me growing up there as part of a gay restaurant community, and not knowing it at the time because I wasn’t out.
Birdsall: The challenge to collecting queer history of the 20th century is piercing the silence. Much of the book is deep readings of The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book or The California Cook Book by Genevieve Callahan and trying to pick up clues that people left, either intentionally or accidentally. I got an appreciation for how complicated the closet was in the context of the post–World War II era in Western history—a system of silence or careful acknowledgment.
What’s a takeaway for readers?
Birdsall: I hope queer readers appreciate those whom I think of as ancestors, and know that even though this history may have happened in separate rooms, separate enclaves, separate places, that food has defined queer experiences. For readers who don’t feel embedded in queer communities, I hope they understand how prejudice is a loss to society in general.
Piepenburg: Gay restaurants were important gay spaces in ways that bars just could never be—you could have conversations, organize protests, go with your drama club if you’re underage. If you’re an elder and
you don’t want to drink or don’t like loud music, you can go to a gay restaurant and that’s still a gay space.
How does your book meet the current moment?
Piepenburg: At this dire time [for queer people], restaurants can still serve as safe spaces for friendship, camaraderie, romance, activism—all those things that they’ve done in the past. Gay restaurants are places where you can have good food or see a drag show, and are also places where the community can thrive.
Birdsall: Part of the MAGA project is to erase our histories from the general story. This book is about the way that people who are marginalized can use food to overcome that, define themselves, and take up space in the culture. It’s about how food gives people a stake in their own histories.
