Gay foods
Home / gay topics / Gay foods
After pandemic closures, when we were talking about Water Bear Bar reopening in spring 2021, we were redefining who we are and what our bar is in the community, and really, were trying to start laughing a lot. This colorful salad is balanced with sweet vs savory, crunchy and crisp vs. Prior to the Ruby Fruit opening, Emily and I started hosting sapphic nights at TRF’s former restaurant Eszett [called ‘LEszett’], running pop-ups around town out of my 1984 Volkswagen Westfalia, and the hot dog was an instant hit.
They are all easy to make and taste delicious.
Enjoy the recipes, enjoy Pride, and celebrate everyone for being exactly who they are! (Covid got in the way, but you get the idea.) I think my Easter cake is a little demented and a little strange, and that’s what makes it queer for me — a traditional, hyper-feminine bake associated with a religious holiday, but done with a campy, fey twist.
— Kaitlyn Mahoney, owner, Under the Umbrella, Salt Lake City
“I’ve somehow always known that I was queer, but the first time I thought of a food as queer wasn’t until 2019 when I got invited to participate in Queer Soup Night. For VIP guests (or GOATs as we like to call them), we like to dress her up in hot dog holders made by an artist we love, Cocodrila from Chile.
On the menu at Lion Dance Cafe, we feature laksa, a crowd favorite since our early pop-up days. Is it community-centered? Even if what you’re making is aspic.
“At this moment, I would say the gayest thing would be our cocktail One of Your Girls. A portion of all profits is donated to LGBTQ+ organizations. She said queer community spaces that serve or provide food create unique spaces for both joy and political organizing.
The rainbow ice cream cups are both fun to make and eat!
Rainbow Cereal Ice Cream CupsFruity pebbles cereal bars are a great food to celebrate pride. They focus on using heirloom corn varietals for their flavor, environmental sustainability, and genetic diversity.
“It’s focused on those voices and those individuals who transformed cookbooks, for instance, transformed restaurant spaces, transformed how queer people could be visible in public spaces.”
Birdsall cited James Baldwin as one such transformational figure. With just five ingredients and only a few minutes needed to prepare them, you can have your family celebrating in no time!
Rainbow CrackersThis easy RAINBOW CAKE is delicious, fun, and full of color!
I feel joyful when I make any form of jellied meat. They also run a blog where, once a month, they pick a Black entrepreneur to feature in an effort to support and raise awareness for Black-founded brands.
They have a variety of snacks with several flavors of popcorn, cheese puffs, twists, and more. The flavors are inspired by classic cocktails and run the gamut from strawberry daiquiri to lychee martini to margarita and many more.
So what is queer food, aside from a term slowly gaining traction in certain corners of the LGBTQ community?
“If the person that curated it, their hands and their energy and their community building, is queer, then it’s queer food,” she said.
John Birdsall
Award-winning food and culture writer
John Birdsall started writing about queer food when “nobody I knew or read remotely talked about queer food,” he said.
Now, Queer Soup Night invites local LGBTQ chefs to make soup to help elevate their public profiles.
The group has 13 active chapters across the U.S. that Alpern said are guided by the importance of connecting with local queer communities and the collective power of those communities, as Queer Soup Nights raise money for local nonprofit organizations.
“In my heart, for me, queer food is food eaten and enjoyed and produced in queer community,” she said.
No less than 12 fruits and veggies in all their glorious textures and colors. Rathbun was a medical cannabis rights activist who became known in the 1980s as “Brownie Mary” for a weed brownie recipe she made for AIDS patients who experienced loss of appetite and severe weight loss.
Ketchum is also the author of “Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses,” which is the first history of more than 230 feminist and lesbian-feminist restaurants and coffeehouses in the U.S.
from 1972 to the present.
Society often views people in this line of work through the lens of the consumer and we really wanted to shift the focus with renaming and updating this cocktail.