Years Before Stonewall, a Chef Published the First Gay Cookbook - Gastro Obscura

Contents:

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

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. 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.

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

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.

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. 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.