The 'gay diet' | Food | The Guardian

Contents:

• WHAT ARE AMERI’S GAYT RTRANT CHAS?
• HOW GAY IS YOUR FOOD?
• WHAT DO YOU MEAN, “GAY FOOD”?
• THE 'GAY DIET'
• WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE GREAT GAY PLAY? EVERYTHG.
• THE 10 BT GAY MILS OF ALL TIME

WHAT ARE AMERI’S GAYT RTRANT CHAS?

Wrer John Birdsall (om left), photographer Nik Sharma, rtratr and chef Preeti Mistry talk about the ncept of the "queer kchen" wh Las Volger, the edor of Jarry, a gay men's food magaze. As Birdsall has wrten, "It's food that tak pleasure serly, as an end self, an assertn of polics or a human birthright, the product of culture — this is the legacy of gay food wrers who shaped morn Amerin food.

" It was this narrowly macho foc that led Birdsall to set the rerd not-so-straight wh Ameri, Your Food Is So Gay, his Lucky Peach say that won a Jam Beard Journalism Award 2014.

Birdsall, now 56, remembers he and a boyiend readg aloud om Olney's wrgs, feelg like they were gettg a glimpse of a secret gay world — one that was, by necsy, elive.

HOW GAY IS YOUR FOOD?

Mistry, who origally wanted to be a filmmaker, was spired by the chefs' creativy and fearlsns, so much so that she left a job the "gay bubble" of Framele to start trag fe dg at Claridge's London. A chat wh a gay profsor led to an vatn to the med school's "secret gay potluck" — secret not out of fear, but simply bee "they didn't want any straights to e, " said Sharma. Birdsall, who won a send Jam Beard Award for Straight Up Passg — an article about gay chefs Jarry's first issue — se queer okg as an act of anti-normative transgrsn and ristance.

In fact, several high-profile, out chefs bristled at beg tegorized as "gay chefs, " much the way that many artists rist beg fed as "women wrers" or "female micians. Or was jt that the chefs — whe and cisgenr, as Mistry pots out — still feared the repercsns of embracg a higher-profile gay inty, even the more equal tim?

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, “GAY FOOD”?

It ma more sense as I watched his Instagram grid populate wh Fire Island group shots featurg other cisgenr gay mal wh ripplg six-packs and short-shorts. He rells how the gay muny then, spe arisg bee of excln om mastream Ameri, closely mimicked cisgenr and straight sexual attus and body ials. There was no roadmap for bottomg or bottom food that Birdsall rells, but service journalism om the still-publishg Bay Area Reporter (BAR) and book The Joys of Gay Sex filled some gaps when public sex tn was woefully aquate, or rather nonexistent.

THE 'GAY DIET'

Fred Latasa-Nicks, the gay chef-owner of famed Provcetown rtrant Strangers and Sats, says the staff se most of their rervatns toward the end of the week, but he’s not sure whether to attribute that to partyg earlier the week or “bottoms beg bottoms” by savg their dners out for later. Strangers and Sats sells thoands of s whole burrata dish wh grilled peach, jalapeno, and agula pto by the end of the gay tourist town’s season. Hall lik to say “sh happens all the time, ” recently stchg together a vio of a gay porn star sayg he uldn’t bottom bee he hadn’t cleaned up down there.

Hall, who they/he/she pronouns and is nonbary, ma a pot om their first vio that the inty of a bottom is not limed to the cisgenr gay male. One thg that’s changed dramatilly sce the gay culture of the ’80s is who is g the label top/bottom/vers and who the bottom’s diet might apply to — and that clus people of many different orientatns, genrs, and kks.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE GREAT GAY PLAY? EVERYTHG.

I’ve even seen her brag on social media about eatg a Rben and gettg railed, and when I spoke to her by phone for this story, she shared an anecdote about gettg spontaneoly fgered a Downtown Los Angel gay club and g out squeaky clean.

In the rearch for Birdsall’s acclaimed bgraphy of gay Amerin chef Jam Beard, he found materials referencg the first time Beard oked for his partner of 30 years, Go Cofacci, vg him over for a meal of a poached lf’s head. And yet, as a gay man-ish person, I have always found the dners to be an unniably queer space, even if I uldn’t offer the exact reason why.

No flourish of sce mak a dish bisexual, nor do flambe make your duck or ice cream “homosexual”: the are terms applied to people, and on that don’t transfer to food, even if an LGBTQ someone igned that dish. Jt as the gay bar is only the tip of the queer-nightlife iceberg, the explicly queer food bs is only the most visible aspect of a much larger, often unseen universe of queer food, one that’s been evolvg and shapg Amerin culture for s.

THE 10 BT GAY MILS OF ALL TIME

I found when out queer woman Angela Dimayuga ran the kchen at New York’s Missn Che, wa staff along the genr spectm slippg my boyiend and me lorful, spicy dish wh a si of flirtatn, a playful nod we associated wh gay bars a few drks , not trendy rtrants.

Durg sprawlg dners at my own apartment, my clique I ll the “gay bros” ll me the “Barelegged Contsa, ” thanks to my fondns for the Food Network star’s recip, served at a table becked wh seasonal r like dick-o’-lanterns while I waltz through the kchen short shorts. The are all moments where the culary queer manifts as s own type of rabow: It wasn’t jt this or jt that which ma the meal a b gay; was a ltle of everythg, the magic of polil liv lived wh joy. As rtrants across the untry toss some rabow food lorg to palize on Pri, queer-owned bs make much more meangful donatns — and that activism is part of what mak their rabow cupk gay, and not jt gay for pay, as Eater’s Adam Mosa wr.

The rtrant grew to an unlikely cha, born an era when gay bars were vert, closed to outsirs, and absolutely not statns for bachelorette parti. Also, lerally leggy cktail glass, burgers as large as the pecs of the hunky servers that liver them, and a “No Hate” chicken sandwich parodyg a certa homophobic Southern cha: All are a part of Hamburger Mary’s long, hard participatn the queer cultural athetic tradn of mp. While her say purposely bobs and weav, Sontag clar that mp’s vanguard are homosexuals (her term) who nsir themselv “aristocrats of taste.