Four Years Before Stonewall, ‘The Gay Cookbook’ Showed a Never-Before-Seen Si of Queer Life | Hor, the Queer Social Network

Contents:

• THE GAY COOKBOOK HARDVER – APRIL 27, 2020
• YEARS BEFORE STONEWALL, A CHEF PUBLISHED THE FIRST GAY COOKBOOK
• IN THE GAY COOKBOOK, DOMTIC BLISS WAS QUEER
• THE GAY COOKBOOK
• THE GAY COOKBOOK: RABOW PRI BLANK RECIPE WRE IN COOK BOOK FOR FOOD AND COOKG INGREDIENT KEEPSAKE NOT JOURNAL COLORFUL COVER
• FOUR YEARS BEFORE STONEWALL, ‘THE GAY COOKBOOK’ SHOWED A NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN SI OF QUEER LIFE
• ‘THE GAY COOKBOOK’ MAK A MEAL OF MP AND SERV UP WH A SI OF LGBTQ+ ACTIVISM
• GAY COOKBOOK (88 RULTS)
• WISNS MIDDLE SCHOOL FEATUR 'THIS BOOK IS GAY' LIBRARY, STIRRG ONLE OUTRAGE
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS HAVE THE FIRST OPENLY GAY NFL COACH

THE GAY COOKBOOK HARDVER – APRIL 27, 2020

A reprt of the origal edn, when the thor was s ahead of his Gay Cookbook is filled wh the jok and nuendo of the time. ” An sential part of mid-century mpy dialogue, was the e of female nicknam among gay men: Hogan addrs the rear by many, cludg Myrtle, Mabel, and Mame.

YEARS BEFORE STONEWALL, A CHEF PUBLISHED THE FIRST GAY COOKBOOK

The Gay Cookbook was a culary trailblazer.

On January 21, 1966, Time magaze ran a story entled “The Homosexual Ameri.

” The anonymo thor cricized the growg activism and visibily of gay people Ameri, notg that many of them “apparently do not sire a cure” for their sexuali.

IN THE GAY COOKBOOK, DOMTIC BLISS WAS QUEER

As an example, the thor referenced advertisements for a new publitn: The Gay Cookbook by Lou Rand Hogan, a book that ma no apologi prentg an image of happy men okg elaborate meals for their lovers. It was published years before the Stonewall rts igned the gay rights movement Ameri, and at the time, wily advertisg a okbook for gay men was fairly edgy.

But the thor of The Gay Cookbook was no stranger to the gay publishg scene.

In fact, five years before, he had published what is now believed to be the first tective novel wh a gay protagonist, tled The Gay Detective. One of the few thgs known about him is that his name was a nom plume, says Stephen Vir, assistant profsor at Bryn Mawr College and thor of an amic paper on The Gay Cookbook. The reer move was opportune: In a short memoir, Hogan timated that the vast majory of the stewards employed by Matson were gay.

THE GAY COOKBOOK

Not only was Hogan learng about the high-class ntental cuise that he would later scribe The Gay Cookbook, he also was immersed “mp” culture—what Vir scrib his paper as “adoptg or accentuatg mannerisms and lguistic styl d as ‘feme.

THE GAY COOKBOOK: RABOW PRI BLANK RECIPE WRE IN COOK BOOK FOR FOOD AND COOKG INGREDIENT KEEPSAKE NOT JOURNAL COLORFUL COVER

However, the looseng of censorship laws the 1950s meant that publishg gay and lbian lerature beme more mon. Hogan’s The Gay Detective was meant to palize on this newly available nsumer market.

The Gay Detective was republished 2003, rponse to growg tert s thly-veiled pictn of gay life midcentury San Francis. But the foreword to the new edn of The Gay Detective not that Hogan’s real claim to fame would be The Gay Cookbook. The 280 pag of The Gay Cookbook are filled wh the jok and nuendo of the time.

” (An sential part of mid-century mpy dialogue, Vir says, was the e of female nicknam among gay men: Hogan addrs the rear by many, cludg Myrtle, Mabel, and Mame. “Mary” also served as a sometim-rogatory term for a gay man.

FOUR YEARS BEFORE STONEWALL, ‘THE GAY COOKBOOK’ SHOWED A NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN SI OF QUEER LIFE

Much of the book, though, is ncerned wh enomil okg, suable for gay men livg and entertag solo. As you gayly ask, ‘How’s ya meat today, Butch? “In terms of his public role, I thk that he imag himself as kd of a gay Julia Child, ” Vir says.

‘THE GAY COOKBOOK’ MAK A MEAL OF MP AND SERV UP WH A SI OF LGBTQ+ ACTIVISM

In the troductn to The Gay Cookbook, Hogan scrib a perhaps-fictnal nversatn wh an edor eager to hop on the okbook publishg wagon.

The edor stat that he’s heard one six people are gay, so there’s the potential to sell a lot of books. Toklas, Jam Beard, and Craig Claiborne, The Gay Cookbook was the first “targeted to to gay men, [while] prentg an image of what gay life might look like to a larger dience.

GAY COOKBOOK (88 RULTS)

Dpe Hogan’s humor and the advertisg strategy, which prented the book as a cursy, Vir says The Gay Cookbook promoted an image of gay domticy.

Vir, who is workg on a book lled Queer Belonggs: Genr, Sexualy and the Amerin Home after World War II, not that gay men were often picted as isolated and unhappy, wh life “really centered on bars. ” By pictg gay men okg and entertag for lovers and iends, Hogan prented an alternative image of gay domtic life as “a vibrant space of nnectn and muny.

This flyer featur the troductn to The Gay Cookbook Yale Collectn of Amerin Lerature, Beecke Rare Book and Mancript Library. In 1970, Hogan beme a food lumnist for The Advote, a gay publitn based California. Hogan wrote a lumn, Auntie Lou Cooks, for nearly the rt of his life (he died 1976), and Vir scrib Hogan’s style as that of “a gay elr” reflectg on a mpier past.

WISNS MIDDLE SCHOOL FEATUR 'THIS BOOK IS GAY' LIBRARY, STIRRG ONLE OUTRAGE

Even The Gay Cookbook, Hogan semi-jokgly, semi-wistfully scrib the “serly-formal dners, soire, grand drags, etc” of the 1920s, while notg that the 1960s were more sual, both sex- and food-wise. By the 1970s, “gay liberatn activists really rid this kd of gay culture for dulgg regrsive genr norms, ” Vir says.

” Pl, The Gay Cookbook targeted whe men, and the illtratns by David Costa picted mori as racial ritur. “It’s a very whe book terms of how he’s prentg gay culture, ” Vir not.

In other ways, The Gay Cookbook was ahead of s time—pecially s pictn of gay men livg joyful liv an era of reprsn. In his books and his lumn, “there’s not only a celebratn of gay socialy, or gay social life, but also a celebratn of gay sexualy, ” Vir says.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS HAVE THE FIRST OPENLY GAY NFL COACH

Only someone “exced to be a part of a gay world, ” as Vir scrib Hogan, uld have wrten The Gay Cookbook. Durg the mid-twentieth century, homosexualy was crimalized, stigmatized, pathologized, and reviled, forcg LGBT people to hi their sexualy and shovg queerns to the closet. Published years before Stonewall, The Gay Cookbook beli that narrative.

Vir suat the book smack dab the middle of a cultural revolutn progrs, one that brought gay men to the fore: “As urts stck down obsceny laws the early 1960s, books and magaz about and targeted at gay men proliferated as never before—and uld be produced and purchased wh far ls fear of legal sanctn. ” And so, 1965, Doubleday published The Gay Cookbook.