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What is queer food? And what does it look like in the South? In the small town of Water Valley in Mississippi, chef and restaurant owner Dixie Grimes serves up a slice of her work that helps us figure out how we can answer these questions. Our Sweet Mamas is a short documentary film exploring the role of Southern food in Dixie’s life, highlighting how her new restaurant serves the people, both literally and metaphorically, that helped get her where she is today, and revealing

Inedible and innutritious food is killing inmates, budgets, and the potential for rehabilitation. Food or Punishment? March 21, 2008.                                                     AP Photo/Andy Duback The top concern  among the 2 million prisone rs in the United States (2022) is food. Reports of maggots , rancid meat , mouldy bread,  and the notorious nutraloaf  - so unpalatable that is has been banned in some states – are common. We must acknowledge that using food as

This is a snapshot of my first foray into the world of breakfast tacos, an apparent staple in Austin, Texas. Fluffy scrambled eggs, soft cubed potatoes that turn to cream on the tongue, and sharp cheese, oozing into all the cracks and crevices, all swaddled up in a chewy flour tortilla. I had fairly low expectations, walking into the chain taco restaurant, Torchy’s: the surly cashier barely making us feel welcome and an unexpected wind biting our cheeks as we waited. But I wa

Have you ever gone out for a meal with your loved ones and had the urge to stop everyone’s cutlery from digging in - mouths salivating and tongues lolling - to spend precious minutes trying to capture on your phone the most appealing shot of your food, from every which angle? I know I have. Or consider this: have you ever spent endless hours mindlessly scrolling through Instagram’s rabbit hole of an explore page, eyes popping and stomach gurgling at hundreds of images of juic

“SWEDE’S ‘ARD!” the waitress screamed as she barged her way through the swinging double doors into the kitchen. While she wasn’t wrong, the swede was rather al dente  (as were the rest of the vegetables, to the point where I wasn’t sure my teeth were strong enough to handle the crunch), my family and I weren’t expecting her to tell the whole restaurant about it. We had decided to take refuge in this humble pub in the Yorkshire dales away from the blowing gales of a normal sum

You eat differently when people watch you. Or at least you should do, according to my mother. Elbows off the table. Mouth closed. Take small bites, the food’s not going to run away from you. You are a girl  and you must eat like one. My childhood was filled with these words and phrases, and there was never a moment where I wasn’t conscious of the way that I ate. I still distinctly remember the embarrassment and shame I felt when one of my friends pointed out my particularly b

The first time I tried a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel (pronounced swiftly and confidently as a baconeggncheese) at a humble deli in the suburbs of New Jersey, I was blown away. The delicate dance of chewy, springy bagel (don't forget the hefty sprinkle of crunchy garlic and sesame seeds), gooey American cheese with an almost impossibly perfect cheese stretch, fluffy eggs, and salty, crispy bacon is one my tongue still has not gotten used to. Wrapped up in wax paper and lazily

54 million Americans are food insecure . Defined as a form of food insecurity, food deserts  are areas where access to healthy, affordable food is inadequate. By taking into account household income, distance from the nearest grocery store (one mile in urban areas vs. ten miles in rural ones), and access to resources such as public transportation, researchers have found that at least 23.5 million  Americans live in food deserts. This has devastating effects on public health,

Calling all foodies! I hate to break it to you (actually I don’t), but authenticity is an overrated scam. And a racist one, too, at that. Now, before you stop slurping your noodles from shock (noodles which you probably ordered from some soon-to-be viral hole-in-the-wall), let me explain myself. The search for authenticity in food causes way more harm than good. Some argue that this term is a respectful way to honor traditional food and cooking techniques from cuisines that h