599: Telling Queer Food Stories with John Birdsall & Erik Piepenburg

29:51It's been a little watered down. But still go go drag brunch. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, drag brunch has really elevated drag queens in a way. I mean, you're absolutely right. It also dilutes what is transgressive, what is subversive about drag queens and has made drag queens more wholesome, I think, in just this sort of public consciousness. But it's also elevated drag queens to be essential parts of not only the restaurant economy, but also just sort of our culture. Brunch drag acts, I mean, obviously are quite different from bar drag acts that happen in certain bars later at night. you know they can get they can get more um thirsty i guess and and it's which is so you know it's great that i'm really happy that that drag has been elevated in this way that it's been embraced in this way even though yeah i would not there are probably few drag brunches i would actually want to go to yeah especially after reading your book eric it's like oh that's right yeah all of all the bachelorettes.

31:18Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Although, look, I will say one of the most fun I've had at a drag brunch was I wrote a piece about Taco Bell's drag brunch, which was a hoot. I would do a Taco Bell drag brunch in a heartbeat. Yeah, did they do that anymore or is that that was like a one off? I think that was a one off Pride Month sort of promotion. It was in like the previous era of corporations buying into Pride. Correct. That is not so. I don't think Taco Bell is going to be doing that this year. Yeah, I think what you're talking about with Drag Brunch to me feels like this bigger kind of evolution of like the commodification and capitalization of queer culture and Hamburger Mary's, which I think, you know, you write about going from a one off kind of community space restaurant into this chain that now has a very different concept of like the queerness that they're creating and selling.

32:04It to me seems like this kind of larger shift that you notice happening in restaurants. I guess I'm curious if you feel like that still is at play right now. I feel like we're, you know, per the comment about Pride corporate buy-in, like I think that maybe some of like the mass commodification of queerness that was popular five years ago, 10 years ago, like maybe is not really as present right now. Yeah, I think that's true. I think Hamburger Mary's is less about corporatization of drag, which I think is alive and well and will continue to be in some ways less than it was certainly even just a year ago.

32:39But with Hamburger Mary's, I think what surprised me there was the extent to which the drag show that I went to at the Hamburger Mary's in West Hollywood, of all places, was really not that gay. There was a drag queen there and there were some gay men working there and there was me. But to my eyes, it did not look gay at all compared to when Hamburger Mary's first opened in the late 70s when it was right near the gay bars and gay men would go back and forth between the bars and then get a burger and go back to the bars and then the sex club. It's not that anymore. And so I ask in the book, well, is it a gay restaurant anymore if there are no gay people there?

33:22And I'm not sure I have the answer. But to me, it didn't feel gay. And that really surprised me. I mean, I think, I mean, you know, having come out in San Francisco a long time ago when Hamburger Mary's was, you know, still in its heyday, I think, you know, I think about the first pride marches that I went to in San Francisco in the early 80s and how uncorporate they were. I mean, you would not see a faith group. You know, you wouldn't see like a church or... Chase Bank. Yeah. I mean, you definitely would not see Chase Bank. And I mean, it took... I mean, the mayor of San Francisco would not...

34:05You know, you would not see politicians except the few, you know, gay... The one gay city supervisor in San Francisco. I mean, you would not see non-queer politicians march in gay pride marches. And the thing about Hamburger Mary's was that, you know, starting, you know, in the early 1980s, the fact that it got discovered by straight people, by trendy straight people, by, you know, kind of wealthy, wealthy straight people, you know, like women who would come after playing tennis. and sort of gawk at the sort of gorgeous hunky waiters, it felt like that definitely felt like a political act. It felt like we, you know, the straight people were coming to gay spaces because what we could build, what we built in restaurants, what we built in just public spaces was really awesome.

35:11It was hilarious. It was challenging. It was subversive. And it felt like, you know, we as a gay community had really made it because they were coming to us. Like we weren't going into straight spaces and feeling, you know, wondering if we could maybe hold hands under the table. They were coming into our spaces and having to look at who we were and having to respect in a way who we were, even though they might make fun of us. But that was the real power, I think, of places like Hamburger Mary's that sort of lost their community power. I mean, it is kind of amazing that that chain, for instance, has survived after so many decades.

36:00But, you know, I see it as part of this historical evolution of queer power, which is something that I was really interested in and wanted to, you know, felt like. I think both Eric's book and my book took that on. Like, how did the power dynamic shift in food and cooking and cookbooks and just domestic spaces? Like, how did queer people overcome so much stigma and so much homophobia to sort of build something that feels central to the culture? And I think that's, you know, that's the story of queer food and queer restaurant spaces. Yeah, I think it's really worthwhile to remember, like, the origin of Hamburger Mary and how it evolved over time.

36:51And another restaurant, John, that you mentioned in your book that I was just so intrigued about was Cafe Nicholson, which, you know, was opened in 1948 in New York by Johnny Nicholson. And Edna Lewis was the chef there. And, you know, I'd heard a little bit about Cafe Nicholson just as this like bohemian downtown space. And, you know, when you go on the Wikipedia page, like it doesn't mention gay people at all. It says the artistic, literary and cultural elite, which I think if you read between the lines, you probably know who that means. But I didn't really think of it as part of queer history.

37:23And I was interested in how you chose to include that and like Edna Lewis by extension in the book. Yeah. I mean, I've always been fascinated, of course, by Edna Lewis, the great cookbook author and restaurant cook. But also just by this myth, this mythic presence of Cafe Nicholson, both in the life of New York City and beyond, how it became the bohemian spot in post-World War II New York City. at a time when, you know, the city, you know, after the war, the city was tearing down historic buildings and sort of, you know, had this eye to the future that Johnny Nicholson and Carl Bissinger and Edna Lewis built this thing that, you know, they would, Johnny and Carl would roam the streets of Manhattan and, you know, pick up pieces of architectural salvage, you know, old Victorian buildings, Gothic windows and that, and just sort of created this space that felt very, very strange in 1949 in New York City.

38:33There was nothing else like it, but it became, as you say, this bohemian spot where everybody wanted to be seen. I mean, Tennessee Williams would hang out there, Truman Capote. And it was a challenge to the dominant culture surrounding it. And what I was fascinated by, you know, thinking about Edna Lewis, I mean, I don't know what Edna's sexuality was. I mean, she was married to a man, but she kind of came up in New York City in this world of, you know, in this queer circle of artists and communists and photographers and, you know, window dressers and sort of found her creative voice in this world that was completely permissive.

39:22And I wanted to try to challenge readers to expand the idea of queerness, not just to be about sexual desire, but to be about people who are sort of creating something that challenged the sort of repressive norms of their time. And so, you know, an inexperienced Black cook, you know, who'd come up in the Great Migration from the South, found this circle of creatives who then could become creative together and sort of out of, you know, literally garbage that people left on the street, build this really amazing space. And Edna learned to cook there, found her voice. And I love that idea that queerness is not limited to gay men or lesbians or, you know, that it's a mood and a movement rather than merely a sexual orientation.

40:34this the sort of power of the marginalized to build something that then goes on to change the culture at large yeah i think it's so beautiful and it goes to this point of when you're digging into the past like there are some things that we just can't know and also some you know contemporary mentalities about queerness as a form of gender expression or expansive sexuality that just that concept didn't exist in the past and we're trying to kind of frame the past in our present also the food there. Like I feel like chocolate souffle, which was her signature, like that feels kind of queer to me, right?

41:08Yeah, it does. Totally. I mean, you know, going back to talking about the, the sort of burgers of my uncle Lou, just sort of not worried about anything, but, um, an intensely pleasurable experience. Um, you know, I think, and you know, Edna was doing that. She, you know, she was not in a place to have been able to eat in fancy or fine French restaurants in New York City. So she was having to figure this out by herself, like make a bayonet sauce, essentially doing French cooking, teaching herself French cooking through kind of feeling her way and not being constrained by many rules. This episode is brought to you by Aura Frames.

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43:18Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Today's episode is brought to you by ButcherBox. As a food writer, I can be a little skeptical about subscription cooking boxes you hear about on podcasts. There's big talk about cooking simplicity, but you're usually left with disappointment after smashing that promo code. Now, Clayton, have you ever tried one of those subscription boxes? Yeah, Matt, my friend gave me a code for that one that has all the chopped vegetables in little baggies. I felt like a drug dealer trying to cook dinner. Yeah, man, I have so been there.

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44:28For nearly a decade, ButcherBox has led the industry with meat and seafood that's antibiotic-free. As an exclusive offer, our listeners can get free protein in every box for a year, plus$20 off your first box when you go to butcherbox.com slash taste. Visit butcherbox.com slash taste to get this limited time offer and free shipping always. That's butcherbox.com slash taste. Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. Yeah, I think like this is one of the many restaurants that I wished I could have been at that table. And I'm curious for each of you, maybe Eric, to start if there's a restaurant from the past that you wish you could kind of be transported back into and what you wish you were eating there.

45:14Yes. I don't wish to go back to the 80s and AIDS, which was not a decade that I would want to go back to. However, if I could go back in the early 80s to Gallus in Atlanta, which is one of the strangest gay restaurants that I have come across. It was in the sort of burgeoning days of the gay neighborhood in Atlanta. And on the second floor was a white tablecloth, fine dining kind of restaurant. They had steak, they had chicken, flowers and vases, and it was that kind of a space. And then you walked on the third floor, there was a cabaret, you could have dessert, you could have a drink, and then in the basement was the hustler area.

45:57So a gentleman, usually a gentleman of a certain age and temperament, could have a lovely dinner, sing Mac the Knife with his fellow queens over dessert, and then finish the night with a hustler, and that was your evening. I cannot imagine a place like that existing anywhere today. But the idea that it's kind of a one-stop shopping, like, department store, gay restaurant for fancy people who are aspirationally looking for a lovely night, But there's also danger there. It's it's an absolutely bizarre restaurant that I would go to. I would make a reservation there tonight if a time machine existed.

46:45It is so surreal. And in the book, you mentioned this this YouTube video that I found. That's like a commercial for the restaurant. But how would you even watch that? How would you explain the video? Yeah, the video was sort of this like love. It's so authentic and so sweet. And the manager has this lovely southern accent and he just wants everyone to come to Gallus and enjoy the chicken. And then it's just it's kind of like a little tour of the space. There's the dining room and then I think maybe they go upstairs. But then they go downstairs to the basement where these like hot 80s guys and like mustaches and like muscle teas are smiling and pouring drinks and everything.

47:27And what they don't show are the trade, the hustlers in the basement or the fights that would break out on the street. The cops coming by. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And it's just like, oh, man, that was a hoot. I wish I could go back to that restaurant at that time and just experience love and romance and show tunes, but then also sex. or like dangerous sex. Yeah, it's just, it's so weird. John, where would you take the time machine? I would take the time machine to late 1940s San Francisco to the Paper Doll, which was a restaurant and bar in North Beach. It opened in 1944. The owner was not gay and it was open for a few years.

48:21And then he brought in this woman named Mona Sargent, who is not queer either. But Mona Sargent had run this really successful lesbian bar in San Francisco called Mona. She was kind of famous for that. And she sort of took on the paper doll and she turned it, as someone at the time said, she just kind of flipped a switch and made it gay. And it became this bar, restaurant, art gallery that seemed to take everyone's aspirations for what they wanted. Everybody who was queer and artistic in San Francisco and sort of build this place. It enforced a certain respect for the patrons. So there were all these kind of queer bars in San Francisco that were on the tourist circuit.

49:16So straight tourists would come to San Francisco or maybe be on a convention or something and would want to see queers, would want to sort of gawk at queer people. And so queer spaces were not purely queer. They were also places where tourists, straight tourists, presumably could come and gawk at queer people. But with the paper doll, it sort of shifted. And it was a place where anyone could walk in there. But there was this kind of enforced respect, even with vice cops, to kind of respect that, you know, a man might be wearing makeup and wearing jewelry. Susan Sontag, who was a student at UC Berkeley at the time, would travel across the bay to go to the paper doll.

50:11She loved the female servers because she thought they were cute, but also they all dressed like men, which was kind of astonishing. So it was this really kind of explosion of creativity of queer community. they had these unlimited amount of restaurant seating. It was essentially a series of booths along one wall. And you would get seated, you would have your own booth for a while, but then as more people came in, so the servers would just sort of shove new people in at your table and suddenly you'd be at this communal table. And as someone, a regular said, it was basically the birth of community.

50:56You would meet all these other lesbians and gay men in San Francisco who you might otherwise never have known. And you would know that you were part of something. You were part of a community as you were eating the prime rib or roast chicken. Yes. And also the live music component, I remember. Live music component. Yeah, yeah. Nat King Cole. Nat King Cole was there for a week, obviously, before he became super, super popular, a superstar. Carmen McRae, the sort of singer and amazing lounge singer, was a frequent guest there. It was, you know, as someone said, there's a reason why Stonewall didn't happen in San Francisco, why it happened in New York City.

51:45You know, even though bars and the paper doll were subject to the same police harassment, the same, you know, vice squad harassment that a lot of other places were. There was a sort of, there was a pushing back in San Francisco that didn't really exist in other cities in the same way. Um, and, and yeah, so there's this kind of blending of queer community, queer culture that could happen, you know, with supportive straight people as well. It's kind of amazing, amazing to think about. Yeah. And the, the roast chicken and the prime rib were, were a draw in their own right, which is, I think, a good way to get people in the door.

52:33I guess while we're fantasizing, I'm curious also if you were going to have a queer dinner party, who some of your dream guests may be living or dead, you know them or you don't, and what you would want to serve them. I would definitely want Samuel Stewart, who was quite a character. He was an aspiring author. He was mentored by Richard Stein and Alice B. Toklas and became a main source of information for sex researchers, for Alfred Kinsey in the 1950s. because Samuel Stewart kept a little notebook where he described everyone, every man he had ever had sex with. And there were many, many. And so he would write something about what they were into or what their, you know, what their taste was, what they did.

53:26And so this became part of Kinsey's research. And then Samuel Stewart just kind of dropped out and became a tattoo artist in Oakland, California. And so Samuel Stewart would be an amazing guest um i'd have to also say oh i mean of course Truman Capote um especially younger Truman Capote um before he became a sort of sad and brittle figure would be amazing and i think I would say Alice B. Toklas. She just had this terribly funny, biting wit, savage wit, and this just completely bizarre sense of the world. Yeah, I think those three would be amazing. Yeah, that's great. Okay, maybe think about what you would make them while Eric tells me three of his guests.

54:25Well, John is such an elegant, sophisticated writer and person. I'm like his trashier, like, brother or something. Oh, come on. I mean, I would want to go back to, like, the restaurant Chuck Renslow, who is one of the fathers of international Mr. Leather, the annual leather competition, had a number of restaurants in Chicago in the 70s and 80s, and one of them was called Grub Steak, which had these beautiful menus of illustrations of Tom of Finland-esque muscle boys with giant bulges and mussels and hankies. And they were farmers and they were miners. It was kind of absurd. But it was in that era when the leather identity, sort of the clone look for gay men, was sort of popular.

55:13And he had a restaurant called Grub Steak, which was open 24 hours. I believe it was downtown Chicago. And again, it served diner-type food, but it was a draw for the City's leather community and kink community. And I cannot imagine what dinner at 3 a.m. breakfast at Grub Steak would have been like. So I would just say Chuck Renslow in any of his like. Whoever's there. Yeah. The leather daddies or the otters and jockstraps who were just like, yeah, let's go have pancakes. That's perfect. Okay. So I guess, John, would you serve them pancakes or something else? Ooh, I would not serve them pancakes.

55:54I would serve them, I mean, it has to be something elegant. I mean, it has to be something with this sort of queer, kind of elevated sense of, you know, this is who we are. You know, we are this sort of gilded people.

56:11I mean, definitely Edna Lewis's chocolate souffle would have to come at the end of the menu. I think there's this really wicked cookbook. So Gore Vidal, the writer, had this sort of longtime partner, Howard. I can't think of his last name, Howard Peterson or something. And in the late 1960s, he wrote a cookbook that is just wickedly, wickedly queer. and so he has all these recipes that have these kind of cringe names they're so they're so gay so there's a dish he has that he says that he claims is basically something that was adapted from what was eaten in ancient Rome and it's called he calls it cumin covered cock which is you know an old an old chicken cooked with cumin you know and obviously yes and just these sort of outrageously named, um, these outrageously named dishes.

57:20There's one, one dish that he calls, um, so he uses a French name for it and it's like chicken or something. Um, deal dough. So, you know, like D apostrophe I L D apostrophe E A U. So yeah, he's just, um, I think that's, I think, I think I would cook something from that book. Yeah. The recipe titles make me think about how both of you use queer language in your books. Like you'll say that someone is, you know, giving or serving something like not in the delivering a dish to the table context, but in the queer context. I'm curious if you like considered how much you wanted to use queer language in the books or if it's just something that came naturally to you as you were writing.

58:05Yeah, I think for me, this is just how I talk. This is me. Like my book is if you and I just talked, this is how I would talk. So you're going to hear about cock rings and you're going to hear about girl this and et cetera. Like, that's just how I talk. So I feel like that sort of comes through in my book. I'm a journalist. And the last thing that I wanted to do with this book was to put myself into it. But my editors convinced me, no, people want you in this book. Take readers along on a journey. So bring yourself. If it's about sex, talk about it. If it's about, if it's going to make you cry, talk about it.

58:42And so I had a little bit of a hard time sort of finding that within me to sort of bring that through. But yeah, no, I never really thought twice about, oh, maybe I shouldn't say this. Actually, there are some words that my editors didn't know what like, like an otter, like what is an otter? So I had to explain what an otter was. And I do in my book, which is fine because I think I hope there are readers who aren't, you know, not everyone's going to know what, like my mom doesn't know what an otter is. So So now she knows. I wanted to write something, and I'm assuming that Eric, you did as well, but something that feels deeply embedded in queer history and queer community, queer consciousness, but that invites every reader in.

59:30So something that is basically, you know, an argument to maybe a non-queer readership about the formation of queer culture or how we sustain queer culture. So I think having those sort of gateposts where maybe a queer reader feels comfortable, feels spoken to or seen, but that also kind of invites a non-queer reader in to who might be curious to discover more or just to be sort of wrapped up in some of this culture that we talk about, who can sort of feel the texture of it. And so I think using certain language is really helpful, is really helpful in doing that. And I think it just, you know, in with both of our books, I think it just kind of establishes our authority, you know, our authenticity as writers who can speak to this community, who can speak to this history.

1:00:32Yeah, I think it's like saying our versus your, right? You're including yourself as a part of this community. Yeah, yeah. And that was really important for me, you know, to feel like this is a continuum. Both Eric and I are writing in a historical moment about the past and about the present. And hopefully it gives readers a sense of what's possible in the future. Yeah, I want to talk about that more. I think, you know, obviously these books are coming out in a moment where queer people have a lot of freedoms. that maybe they didn't previously in the book. Like, we're not in this era where you have to wear three articles of clothing of your assigned gender at birth as people had to in the past.

1:01:16But at the same time, queer people are under a lot of attack, especially our trans siblings. And I think a lot of the queer elders that I talk to say, you know, look at the past in moments like this. I'm curious for both of you what it feels like to be publishing these books in this moment and how you think looking back at these queer histories can kind of guide us in this present. Yeah, I would say that I hope my book, especially the sections where I talk about activism, whether it's in the court or whether it's in the streets, like I talk about ACT UP, I talked about feminists, the lesbian feminists, whatever era we're talking about, I hope that people can read this book and say, no, no, no, now's not the time to sit back because here are 50 examples of ways that queer people in the past have used restaurants as places to organize, as places to mobilize and say, we're not going to take this anymore, or where they have filed lawsuits.

1:02:15I talk about this case at Papa Shoe in Los Angeles where two lesbians were denied the romantic couples booths one night. And that turned into a very important case about civil rights, not just in California, but across the country. And so if queer people did it then, I think we can do that now. And it's going to require you to not just send out a message on Facebook or say something angry on TikTok. No, no, no. It might require you to take to the streets. And I hope my book is a little bit of a way to sort of say we did it before and we can do it again. Yeah, I think, you know, food is such, food has become such an expressive, an expressive medium, you know, a medium for self-expression and for connecting people.

1:03:08And I think, you know, the great story of queer food is how, you know, within this bigger struggle for queer civil rights over the 20th century, how food was an important component of that, but also how just general perceptions of food changed. how cookbooks started out in the early 20th century as just these recipe compendiums with very little personality. Or if there was personality, it was invented. Like Betty, it had the face of a made-up person like Betty Crocker behind it. And how over the course of the century, the language of food, cookbooks, how we cook for family, who we consider family, the people who sit around our table, how that has evolved to really fit the moment and really has this sense of urgency for the moment.

1:04:08I hope the lesson is that we have the power. Previous generations of queer people were defined by this huge, immovable-seeming power structure where judges, the police, psychiatrists were telling us what queerness was. That it was a sickness. That it was criminal. That it was transgressive. and the great story of queer liberation was us as a community being able to take the reins and say, no, this is who we are. This is what we are. This is how we love. This is how we build families. This is how we cook for and nurture the people who we love. And so I want that to continue. I want the lesson from both of our books to be that we have the power to define ourselves.

1:05:04And in this, yeah, particularly dark moment where it feels like all kinds of things were being reversed, possibility of things being reversed, we can hold on to that power and we can say, you know, draw the line and say, no, this is who we are. And you can see who we are by how we, how we, how we cook, how we live, what our homes are like, what our restaurants are like. So yeah, that's, that's the message that I, that I hope readers take. Yeah, I think reading both of your books, whether it's about being out in a restaurant or in my home or in my friend's home, I think the takeaway is this is a time to gather together and to feed each other because, you know, we're all humans and we need to eat to survive.

1:05:45But also that cooking is how you can exert who you are, can share that with other people and can like build these worlds and these families that are so much greater than yourself. Yeah, absolutely. Amen. I feel like we could keep talking forever, but honestly, that might be a really good point to leave the conversation. I guess to close, I'll do two more questions. The first is if you could each shout out one of your favorite queer spaces to eat in today. Yeah, I'll say Little Deb's Oasis. I'll snag Little Deb's Oasis in Hudson, New York, which when I walked in there, I felt like it had the strangest feeling of that.

1:06:25people there were expecting me somehow, you know, that I had this sense of recognition, like, you know, everybody, I mean, it sounds like a cliche, but that everybody in the room felt like they belonged there. And I felt like I was being told that I belonged there too. So whatever magic, you know, through decor, food. It just feels like the place of acceptance. Nepalese Lounge and Grill in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They have a monthly transgender meetup there for trans folks from around the region. And it's just such a safe space for people who live in small town in Wisconsin or Illinois, and the only place where they can sort of live their lives sort of out and genuinely as trans people is at this restaurant, which, by the way, does not serve food from Nepal.

1:07:25It's just called Nepalese. That's the only place where they can truly express themselves once a month. And they serve a killer fried white cheese curd. It comes in this gym with plastic red baskets with the grease thing on it. And I scarfed down an entire basket of white cheese curds with some dipping sauce at the bar. And I had a complete blast. I felt so welcome. And now I have a love for Wisconsin cheese curds that I didn't know I had. Well, it's a good thing to know that you love. Your horizons expanded. Okay, final question for each of you. A fictional food scene, like from a book or a movie, that you wish you could magically eat in real life?

1:08:11Well, I think I would say a play that I write about in my book called The Nance, which was written by Douglas Carter Bean. And the very first scene is set at an automat in New York City. I have never been to an automat before. These huge cafeteria-style places where you'd put a coin in a slot and you'd open a door and you'd get a piece of pie or you'd get a roast beef dinner. And there's a scene in that play between two men who meet there and then form this romance. from that meeting. And I would go there just to, A, eat at an automat, which sounds like a dream, but also just to see how cruisy it was.

1:08:51Because in the 30s, the heyday of the automat, there were no pride flags. You didn't wear your pride T-shirt walking through the dining room. You had to sort of look carefully or wear maybe an article of clothing in a shade of lavender or other ways to signal, hey, I see you, you're gay, I'm gay. Let's maybe share a cup of soup and I live nearby. You want to come over after this? I would not want to be as deeply closeted and scared as it was in the 30s to be gay. But man, that would be a scene that I would love to recreate that. Yeah, I'm so glad you mentioned the automats. I wish we had like seven hours to talk because it was so interesting reading about, you know I feel like I read um you know Patti Smith's memoir she talks about meeting Allen Ginsberg in an automat like these kind of third spaces that they were and in your book you say they're one of the only spaces that unaccompanied women could be in by themselves like they couldn't dine in a restaurant so especially if you were a woman looking to meet another unaccompanied woman the automat would be the place to do that yeah and people would just think you're you're gal pals just there you know having some coffee but there was still think we're gal pals exactly exactly John, what's your fictional food scene?

1:10:03Well, my fictional food scene is Queer in Spirit. So it's the famous dining scene in the late 1960s film Tom Jones, in which Tom Jones has a dinner across the table from a woman who he's going to sleep with. So the situation is straight, but everything about it is so queer. like the way that they're sort of, you know, sort of tonguing, you know, chicken wings across the table at each other, or it's completely scandalous, feels completely queer. Um, and although I never had this actual experience when I was younger in San Francisco, there were dinner parties that seemed inspired by that sense of seduction.

1:10:59Um, there was, um, there was this couple who were kind of infamous for, um, you know, inviting a third partner into their bed, these two guys, and they, they would invite you over for dinner. And if they cooked rabbit for you that you would eat with your hands, you knew that you were going to end up in bed with them. So it's this sort of tradition of seductive dinners. I will say that they did invite me over once and they did not serve rabbit. Oh, scandalous. Oh, damn. Brutal. I know. I was like, what? So yeah. But yeah, that scene from Tom Jones is really amazing. And I argue it is quintessentially queer.

1:11:46I love this idea. I love the symbolic rabbit. I'm going to be thinking about that for a long time. I know. I'm sorry. Of course, I've spent like years like, wait, why? What was wrong with me? It's not you, John. It's not. Yeah, it's not me. Exactly. Well, thank you both so much for writing these beautiful books, really, and sharing them not only with our community, but with the larger world and coming on the show to talk about them. I really have enjoyed this conversation. And I think maybe queer food will never be singularly defined, but we've come up with a lot of really great definitions for it today.

1:12:22Thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

1:12:31This is Taste is hosted and produced by Matt Rodbard and me, Eliza Abarbanel. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell, logo and guest illustrations by Ellie Skrzat. Visit Taste online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.