Feeding social change: the queer digital essays of Eva Reign, Mayukh Sen, and Andy Baraghani as transformative portraiture of contemporary food struggle and intersectional experience

• Published in: Prose studies Vol. 42; no. 3; pp. 239 - 258
• Main Author: Chamberlain, Edward A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 02.09.2021; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Culinary; History; Intimate; Justice; LGBTQ people; LGBTQIA
• ISSN: 0144-0357; 1743-9426
• DOI: 10.1080/01440357.2022.2149234

As a popular form of nonfiction, the genre of the digital magazine essay is a fitting means of chronicling the lives of queer and transgender culinary figures both past and present. In the past decade, a range of digital culinary magazines have begun to create spaces for recounting the personal stories and history of culinarians, who at times have been overlooked. To examine these phenomena, this article turns to the digital essays of the Black transgender writer Eva Reign, the queer Bengali American journalist Mayukh Sen, and the gay Iranian American chef Andy Baraghani. Much like the food writer M.F.K. Fisher, these writers foster thinking about foodscapes, but they also create portraits of the ways that queer and trans people of color are addressing marginalization. As the essays mirror intimate lives, they reflect upon struggles in culinary contexts involving substantive labor, leading us to consider queer hustles of the past.