What Is Queer Food?: How We Served a Revolution

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In Birdsall's lyrical account, food has become one of the languages that can express queer identity.--Joe Yonan "Washington Post"

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Delectable, delightful, delovely! Birdsall's genius has given us a queer chronicle, full of both famous names and untold stories, revealing the subversive secret life of food in America. And done with all the charm and wit of M. F. K. Fisher--a seemingly effortless feast of the senses.--Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less and Less Is Lost

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A staggering, sweeping work full of wit and bite. What Is Queer Food defies category: It's a history and a philosophical argument, a chain of interconnected stories told in Birdsall's unmistakable voice, sexy and joyous and angry and thrumming with life. It casts a bright light on an essential, under-recognized dimension of American gastronomic history.--Helen Rosner

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John Birdsall masterfully unveils the hidden stories of influential figures who have shaped American cuisine--individuals whose queer identities often remain unrecognized. With compassion and insight, he brings their journeys to life, celebrating their strengths while thoughtfully examining their complexities and humanity.--Nik Sharma, author of The Flavor Equation and Veg-Table

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An important decree of queer visibility in food history, excavating and restoring a narrative long buried and obstructed. What Is Queer Food? is also wildly entertaining. John Birdsall continues to establish himself as one of my most anticipated writers.--Lisa Donovan, author of Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger

Brief Description:
"The food on our plates has long been designed, twisted, and elevated by queer hands. Piecing together a dazzling mosaic of queer lives, spaces, and meals, beloved food writer John Birdsall unfolds the complex story of how, through times of fear and persecution, queer people used food to express joy and build community--and ended up changing the shape of the table for everyone. Tracing the evolution of queer food from the early decades of the twentieth century through the LGBTQ civil rights movement of post-Stonewall liberation and the devastation of AIDS, Birdsall fills the gaps between past and present. He channels the twin forces of criticism and cultural history to propel readers into the kitchens, restaurants, swirling party houses, and buzzing interior lives of James Baldwin, Alice B. Toklas, Truman Capote, Esther Eng, and others who left an indelible mark on the culinary world from the margins. Queer food, as Birdsall brilliantly reveals, is quiche and Champagne eleganza at Sunday brunch and joyous lesbian potlucks in the bunker world of Cold War homophobic purges. It's paper chicken for the gender-rebel divas of Chinese opera in San Francisco, Richard Olney's ecstatic salade composée, and Rainbow Ice-Box Cake from Ernest Matthew Mickler's White Trash Cooking. It's the intention surrounding a meal, the circumstances behind it, the people gathered around the table. With cinematic verve and delicious prose, What Is Queer Food? is a monumental work: a testament to food's essential link to modern queerness that reveals how, like fashion or pop music, cooking and eating have become a crucial language of LGBTQ+ identity. By reframing our understanding of both food and queerness, it opens the door for courageous reckoning and boundless conversation."--

Review Quotes:
What Is Queer Food weaves the constellations of possibility underlying our cuisines in Birdsall's gorgeous, ebullient prose. Warm and generous, precise and exacting, this book is one of a kind, tied together by Birdsall's knowingness and generosity. An absolutely gorgeous work.--Bryan Washington, author of Family Meal

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Poetically tracing the fascinating, elusive history of queer people and food, John Birdsall, author and former chef, serves us a scrumptious buffet of queer bakers, chefs, cookbook writers, eaters, foods, food parties, food writers, restaurant owners, and reviewers, and the waitpeople who carry it to us--in a nutshell, everything and everyone from soup to nuts. A feast to remember!--Jonathan Ned Katz, author of The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams

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Combining a novelistic imagination with razor-sharp analysis, Birdsall fills in historical gaps to highlight the resiliency of queer people and the cast the culture of food and dining as an unlikely but powerful symbol of resistance. Readers will be eager to dig in.-- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)"

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If 'queer' itself may resist easy definition, food can help clarify its central conviction: that we deserve pleasure. What Is Queer Food? puts the sensual and the sensory at the fore, and it pulsates with hunger for what's possible when queer life and expression is examined through food.--Lukas Volger "New York Times Book Review"

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Coupl[es] meticulous research and gorgeous prose to illuminate lives that, in ways indirect and overt, shaped who we are as a culinary nation....Birdsall does not abide counterfeit joy. He narrates lives shaped by society's denials, prejudices and punishments, and he lays their suffering bare....Where delight comes easy is in Birdsall's prose.--Bill Addison "Los Angeles Times"

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A soup-to-nuts-to-brunch-to-all-night-diner portrait of the inextricable link between queerness and food that's as much cultural criticism as delicious celebration.-- "New York Times Book Review"

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A book that is truly the first of its kind, one that snaps genres and take risks....In an unmistakably beautiful, literary voice, one underscored by the intersection of history, emotion, and experience, What is Queer Food? also asks readers to look at the term 'queer' through a sharper lens; to give it more dimension and nuance.--Kristin L. Wolfe "Forbes"

Review Quotes:
Readers who love to cook, bake or entertain, collect cookbooks, or use a fork will want this book. Its stories are nicely served, they're addicting, and they may send you in search of cookbooks you didn't know existed.--Terri Schlichenmeyer "OutSFL"

Publisher Marketing:

The food on our plates has long been designed, twisted, and elevated by queer hands. Piecing together a dazzling mosaic of queer lives, spaces, and meals, beloved food writer John Birdsall unfolds the complex story of how, through times of fear and persecution, queer people used food to express joy and build community--and ended up changing the shape of the table for everyone.

Tracing the evolution of queer food from the early decades of the twentieth century through the LGBTQ civil rights movement of post-Stonewall liberation and the devastation of AIDS, Birdsall fills the gaps between past and present. He channels the twin forces of criticism and cultural history to propel readers into the kitchens, restaurants, swirling party houses, and buzzing interior lives of James Baldwin, Alice B. Toklas, Truman Capote, Esther Eng, and others who left an indelible mark on the culinary world from the margins. Queer food, as Birdsall brilliantly reveals, is quiche and Champagne eleganza at Sunday brunch and joyous lesbian potlucks in the bunker world of Cold War homophobic purges. It's paper chicken for the gender-rebel divas of Chinese opera in San Francisco, Richard Olney's ecstatic salade composée, and Rainbow Ice-Box Cake from Ernest Matthew Mickler's White Trash Cooking. It's the intention surrounding a meal, the circumstances behind it, the people gathered around the table.

With cinematic verve and delicious prose, What Is Queer Food? is a monumental work: a testament to food's essential link to modern queerness that reveals how, like fashion or pop music, cooking and eating have become a crucial language of LGBTQ+ identity. By reframing our understanding of both food and queerness, it opens the door for courageous reckoning and boundless conversation.

Review Citations:

• Publishers Weekly 04/07/2025 (EAN 9781324073796, Hardcover) - *Starred Review
• Kirkus Reviews 05/15/2025 (EAN 9781324073796, Hardcover)
• Booklist 05/27/2025 (EAN 9781324073796, Hardcover)

Contributor Bio:Birdsall, John
John Birdsall is the author of The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard and is the recipient of two James Beard Awards for food and culture writing. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.