Feminist Food Stories

Can we square our love of animals with our inability to stop eating their body parts? In this short audio essay, Feminist Food Journal editor Isabela chronicles her evolving relationship with vegetarianism and stubborn love of offal to unpack what meat means to our sense of self.This podcast features writing and sound editing by Isabela Bonnevera and original music by the Electric Muffin Research Kitchen. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.feministfoodjournal.com/subscribe

This is an audio reading of Meat: The Four Futures, first published last week by TABLE researcher Tamsin Blaxter as part of our MEAT issue. Tamsin breaks down the gendered dimensions of different future visions on meat, weaving together strands of feminist and postcolonial history to examine why certain futures resonate differently with different folks, and what direction techno-meat is heading in. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.feministfoodjournal.com/subscribe

Through a conversation with his father, Amirio Freeman digs into the dynamics of grilling as a queer Black man. Drawing on references to literature investigating meat's link to masculinity, the piece offers an intimate dialogue between family members about how the act of bringing meat to a flame reflects Black food traditions in need of stewards, impositions of gender performance, and food as a vehicle for queer possibilities. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.feministfoodjournal.com/subscribe

This is an audio version of the piece “To Speak in Two Tongues”, written (and narrated here) by Mwinji Nakamba Siame for our MEAT issue.Mwinji Nakamba Siame is a writer and budding visual artist with an interest in sharing and understanding African women's experiences. Her nonfiction has most recently appeared in Art Dusseldorf where she wrote about the Women's History Museum of Zambia. Her fiction is forthcoming in Chapbook format via Dancing Girl Press (US).  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.feministfoodjournal.com/subscribe

In this podcast, Troy Bright, a self-taught orca researcher, shares his knowledge of orcas' rich matriarchal societies, their unique food cultures, and how our human food systems are putting this way of life at risk. This includes over-extraction of salmon, a key food source for orcas which Indigenous nations managed sustainably for thousands of years before colonization; Isabela dig into the links between the historical treatment of Indigenous women in the salmon canning industry and high levels of food insecurity among Indigenous and racialized women in British Colombia today. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.feministfoodjournal.com/subscribe

In this episode of Feminist Food Stories, Isabela sits down with Alison Hope Alkon, Associate Professor of Teaching in the Community Studies Program in the Department of Sociology at UCSC and co-editor of A Recipe for Gentrification: Food, Power, and Resistance in the City. Published in July 2020 by NYU Press and focused on large to mid-sized cities in Canada and the US, the edited volume explores the complex links between food, urban development, gentrification, and the right to the city.Isabela and Alison reflect on the book's findings to discuss why we should include food in conversations about gentrification, and vice-versa; how to understand gentrification as an outcome of cultural or structural drivers; how well-intended activities like urban agriculture and food activism can inadvertently displace vulnerable communities, and how gentrification links to gender and racial justice.CreditsThis episode features research, writing, and sound editing by Isabela Vera and original music by the Electric Muffin Research Kitchen.Big thanks to all contributors to A Recipe for Gentrification, whose insights and analysis were instrumental in shaping this interview.TranscriptA full transcript of the episode is available online here.Further readingBooksCultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability. (2011). Edited by Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman.Urban Alchemy: Restoring Joy in America's Sorted-Out Cities (2013). Mindy Thompson Fullilove.JournalsAnguelovski, I. (2015). Alternative food provision conflicts in cities: Contesting food privilege, injustice, and whiteness in Jamaica Plain, Boston. Geoforum, 58, 184-194. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.10.014Anguelovski, I., Brand, A. L., Ranganathan, M., & Hyra, D. (2022). Decolonizing the Green City: From Environmental Privilege to Emancipatory Green Justice. Environmental Justice, 15(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2021.0014Bonotti, M., Barnhill, A. Food, Gentrification and Located Life Plans. Food ethics 7, 8 (2022). https://rdcu.be/dhzRR This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.feministfoodjournal.com/subscribe

Esta es una versión en audio del artículo "Sin ellas no hay maíz ni país", escrito (y narrado aquí) por María Villalpando para nuestro número de TIERRA. You can also read and listen to the original English-language version.En México, el trabajo y conocimiento de las tortilleras, — mujeres que hacen y venden tortillas de manera tradicional — son fundamentales para conservar la agrobiodiversidad y las prácticas alimentarias tradicionales. Al reflexionar sobre el uso de la leña para la transformación de los alimentos en el campo mexicano, encontramos el particular vínculo entre las relaciones de género, la construcción de soberanía alimentaria y el uso de recursos energéticos para la transformación del maíz en alimento. Por María Villalpando | Traducido por Ignacio AhijadoMaría Villalpando es una estudiante de doctorado mexicana en la Universidad de California, Berkeley. María está interesada en las complejidades de los espacios rurales de México y entiende la escritura y la investigación como prácticas socialmente comprometidas.Ignacio Ahijado es traductor, mediador intercultural y gestor de comunicación en Nested CoLab. Actualmente vive en Lisboa, enclave atlántico desde donde busca construir puentes entre personas, culturas y territorios. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.feministfoodjournal.com/subscribe

In this episode, FFJ co-founding editor Zoë Johnson had the honour of speaking with Melanie Allen and amanda david about their work with the incredible Black Farmer Fund. They cover power in our food systems, the complexities of cultivating land in a capitalist settler-colonial context, and much more.CreditsThis episode features writing and sound editing by Zoë Johson; Research by Zoë Johnson & Isabela Vera; and original music by the Electric Muffin Research Kitchen.Audio clips include Dr. Alice Ragland, from her recording of “More Radical Than It May Seem” from Feminist Food Journal, and Karen Washington, from the video “Community Wealth Building” by Black Farmer Fund.TranscriptFull transcript of the podcast available here.ShownotesLearn more about Black Farmer Fund on their website, where you can also watch the powerful “Black Farmers Thriving” video series. For more information on investing, you can email invest@blackfarmerfund.com.Check out amanda david's initiative, Rootwork Herbals and read about the Jane Minor BIPOC Community Medicine Garden.Further Readings“The Great Land Robbery” (Vann R. Newkirk II, The Atlantic)“Help Black Farmers, Who Know Hyperlocal Doesn't Mean Fancy” (Tressie McMillan Cottom, The New York Times)“Race, Land, and the Law: Black Farmers and the Limits of a Politics of Recognition” (Brian Williams and Tyler McCreary, Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of Food Justice)“The USDA Is Set To Give Black Farmers Debt Relief. They've Heard That One Before” (Emma Hurt, NPR) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.feministfoodjournal.com/subscribe

In this episode of Feminist Food Stories, editor Isabela sits down with Charlotte Coté, Professor in the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington and author of A Drum in One Hand, A Sockeye in the Other: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the Northwest Coast. They discuss the role of gender in Indigenous food sovereignty in both the past and present, the risks of “culinary imperialism” in blanket calls to veganize our diets, how social media enables Indigenous peoples to tell their own stories about food, and the ways that going back to the land with a “colonized” mindset can lead to missed opportunities for true connection.TranscriptFull transcript of the podcast available here.Shownotes and further resourcesCoté, C (2022). A Drum in One Hand, a Sockeye in the Other: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the Northwest Coast. University of Washington Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv289dw4pCoté, C. (2022, Oct 17). ḥačatakma c̓awaak (everything is interconnected). Indigenous food sovereignty, health, resilience and sustainability. Talk given at President's Dream Colloquium on Indigenous Peoples and Local Community Perspectives on Sustainability and Resilience. Simon Fraser University, Harbour Centre, Vancouver.Coté, C. (2022, Oct 6). “c̓uumaʕas. The River that Runs through Us”. Talk given at the Oregon Humanities Center, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon.Coté, C. (2022, Sep 28). UO Today interview: Charlotte Coté (Tseshaht First Nation), Amer. Indian Studies, University of Washington. University of Oregon.Coté, C. (2022, March 16). Exploring Indigenous Food Sovereignty with Dr. Charlotte Coté. MOHAI History Café. Download program transcript: https://adobe.ly/3PGcnPsCoté, C. (2022, March 3). Charlotte Coté with Dana Arviso: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the NW Town Hall Seattle.Coté, C. (2019). hishuk'ish tsawalk—Everything is One: Revitalizing Place-Based Indigenous Food Systems through the Enactment of Food Sovereignty. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 9(A), 37–48. https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2019.09A.003Nast, C. (2020, November 8). This Inukj Throat Singer is Bringing Cultural Pride to TikTok. Vogue. https://www.vogue.com/article/shina-novalinga-indigenous-inuk-throat-singer-tiktok This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.feministfoodjournal.com/subscribe

In an interesting twist, this is an in-house interview with FFJ's founding editors. Isabela talks to Zoë about her master's thesis research on bunabéts, otherwise known as coffee houses, in Ethiopia and the links between serving coffee feminization and the sexualization of feminized labour. Zoë's research went on to be published in the Journal of Gender and Research. You can read it here.This podcast features writing, research, and sound editing by Isabela Vera and Zoë Johnson and original music from the Electric Muffin Research Kitchen. You can also listen to it on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.Further reading* Bhopal, K. (2010). 'Gender, Identity and Experience: Researching Marginalised Groups.' Women's Studies International Forum, (33, 3: 188-195).* Campbell, R., & Wasco, S. M. (2000). 'Feminist Approaches to Social Science: Epistemological and Methodological Tenets.' American Journal of Community Psychology, (28, 6: 773-791).* Cornwall, A., & Anyidoho, N. A. (2010). 'Introduction: Women's Empowerment: Contentions and Contestations.' Development, (53, 2: 144-149).* Cornwall, A., Harrison, E., & Whitehead, A. (2008). 'Gender Myths and Feminist Fables: The Struggle for Interpretive Power in Gender and Development.' In A. Cornwall, E. Harrison, & A. Whitehead,(Eds: pp. 1-19 ). Gender Myths and Feminist Fables. Malden. MA: Blackwell Publishing.* Devault, M. L. (1990). 'Talking and Listening from Women's Standpoint: Feminist Strategies for Interviewing and Analysis.' Social Problems, (37, 1: 96-116).* Gregson, N., & Rose, G. (2000). 'Taking Butler Elsewhere: Performativities, Spatialities and Subjectivities.' Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, (18, 4: 433-452).* Hoppe, K. (1993). 'Whose Life Is It, Anyway?: Issues of Representation in Life Narrative Texts of African Women.' The International Journal of African Historical Studies, (26, 3: 623-636).* McRobbie, A. (2009). The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. London: SAGE.* Peacock, J. L., & Holland, D. C. (1993). 'The Narrated Self: Life Stories in Process.' Ethos, (21, 4: 367-383).* Shain, F. (2012). '"The Girl Effect": Exploring Narratives of Gendered Impacts and Opportunities in Neoliberal Development.' Sociological Research Online, (18, 2: 181-191).* van Stapele, N. (2014 March). 'Intersubjectivity, Self-Reflexivity and Agency: Narrating About "Self" and "Other" in Feminist Research.' Women's Studies International Forum, (43: 13-21). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit feministfoodjournal.substack.com/subscribe

This is an audio reading of Just Because I Bottom, Doesn't Mean I'll Make You a Sandwich, narrated by Pericles Santis and written by Jay Gee for our SEX issue. Read the original article here.Further readingAtwood, S. F. (2019). The Determination of Gender Roles and Power Dynamics Within Female Same Sex Couples. University of Northern Iowa. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1404&context=hpt Gill, R., and Orgad, S. (2018). The Shifting Terrain of Sex and Power: From ‘sexualization of culture' to #MeToo. Sexualities, Vol. 2(8), 1313-1324. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1363460718794647?journalCode=sexa Milton, J. (2022, February 8). ‘The long, deep, surprisingly versatile history of bottoms: From Ancient Greece to modern misogyny'. Pink News. https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2022/02/08/bottoming-history-gay-bottoms/ Tarrant S. (2013). Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Men-Speak-Out-Views-on-Gender-Sex-and-Power/Tarrant/p/book/9780415521086Trotman, A.D. (2017). Relationship and Power Dynamics in Women's Same Sex Abusive Couples. University of Rhode Island. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1619&context=oa_diss This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit feministfoodjournal.substack.com/subscribe

How one person's journey of self-discovery in the bedroom led them to reconsider their practices in the kitchen.Listen to an audio version of this piece above or on our podcast (and in your usual podcasting app).By Jay Gee | Narrated for audio by Pericles SantisI'm new to bottoming. As a self-identified slut, it surprises me that I'm only now learning how to bottom, somewhat late in life – in my oh-so-dreaded thirties. In gay years on the Chicago scene, I'm now An Elder. It's like I'm learning a new language, one peppered with references to douching, poppers, fibre supplements, toys, and specialty diets. But beyond following prescriptions to avoid dairy and drink enough water, I'm also seeing myself in a totally new light. In my twenties, I spent my most promiscuous years identifying as a vers top: I would bottom on occasion but never really enjoyed it. I indulged in regular hookups with a mix of guys where we would explore what turned each other on, but I tended to go for guys who preferred bottoming. That was just what got me off. In those years, I never really considered my gender identity: I thought I was cisgender at the time. I was a homonormative cis-gay vers-top. I enjoyed frequent hookups with guys in the Chicago area. I exclusively topped with my most recent ex and the other guys we would mess around with. I prided myself on being the one others thought to be in full control.Everything changed when I met my current partner. We encountered the usual way — via the apps — and I was overwhelmed by his charm. His confident smile instantly won me over. He identified squarely as a top and knew what he liked. He had never been penetrated and certainly wouldn't be any time soon. When we started talking, we laughed about both being tops, joking that we would endure taking turns bottoming or saying we would need to invite in a third to make it work. But as our relationship deepened, something shifted within me.  I felt comfortable relinquishing power to him and allowing him to take the lead. To take control. My sexual preferences, my world, flipped upside down. ***To bottom is to let go entirely — physically and mentally. For me, though, letting go has never before been an option. Until now, the contours of my selfhood were always defined by control and restraint. Even my own emotions were no match for the dominion I had over myself. I ignored or reigned in inconvenient feelings of remorse, jealousy, and grief. I steered conversations so that the spotlight would shine over my head. I manipulated, and I hurt those closest to me. To let go, then, would be to lose myself.  I remember it well. On the pallet-supported bed in his spacious but bare-shelved studio, face dug into a pillow, knees flush to the chest, hands clasped, arms extended along my back. A position reminiscent of the amateur porn littering the seedier corners of my Twitter feed – motel cumdumps, darkroom gangbangs, winsome college lovers. Except I didn't have the bird's eye view. I was the one who now lay writhing, self-consciously adjudicating whether the wetness I felt was lube or s**t, feigning moans on a cacophonous scale climbing from minor pain to — dare I say — major pleasure?  Here, balled up in a reverse fetal position, fumbling in the dark trying to align his cock with my a*****e like a mid-air jet refuelling operation, in total awe of his girth and my a*****e's elasticity, I learned to unfetter from my reign of self-imposed control. I'd always imagined it happening differently.***With my current partner, I'm now only bottoming. And I'm loving it. I'm revelling in the feeling of releasing, of letting someone else take the wheel. It's the feeling of every cell in my body suddenly vibrating at the same frequency, a sensation so powerful that my mind, which never shuts the f**k up, finally falls silent. All I feel are the corporeal markings of pleasure. Have you ever been dicked down so good that you question your very existence?  This is essentially what happened. I've experienced my first anal orgasms and even hands-free orgasms. It's been so good that I haven't wanted sex with anyone else, and I haven't wanted to top either. But giving myself up has changed how I show affection outside of the bedroom. Despite the veneer of effortless, almost irreproachable, fortune and charm I use to cloak it in everyday interactions, I have a softer side. In particular, making and sharing food is my love language. I'm someone who would give you a take-home bag of cookies after a threesome. Not only am I the kind of person who would do this, but I have done this. I remember discretely placing Ziplocs of freshly-baked chocolate macadamia nut cookies in the backpacks of two Russian gymnasts, just beside the bottle of poppers. I always ensured that my special guests left with a full belly, one way and the other. That's what I consider being a good host.When I started dating my current partner, I spent lots of time in the kitchen — as I always had — making us food. After he would toss my salad, I'd toss a literal salad for him in return. But after about two months of getting railed exclusively, I started feeling uneasy. Why did I feel so compelled to cook for him after sex? He would blissfully gorge on whatever I made him as I grappled with not feeling the same joy providing nourishment that I used to. With every post-coitus meal, I was filled, inch by inch, with equal parts spunk and irritation. Is he just asking me to do this because I'm taking the more “feminine” role in our relationship? I'm sure it's fine. He would do this with anyone, right? I should be fine with it. I unpack discomforting and vexing situations to death and ruminate helplessly for inordinate lengths of time, as is my wont. Outwardly, I suppressed revealing these feelings, thinking that maybe I was just being dramatic. But with my mind on spin cycle, I lurched and bucked through endless mental reruns looking for a sign, a clue, an inkling as to the crux of my resentment. Why had I become so sensitive to associations with care work and the feminine after bottoming? Eventually, the seemingly endless rounds of mental acrobatics unveiled what lay buried for the better part of my life: shame. Steadily and potently distilled from my fear of being perceived as feminine, weak, and not in control. My partner identifies as a cisgender man, and even though I'm somewhat masculine-presenting,  I now identify as non-binary. I grew up with traditional gender modelling from my cishet parents and didn't want to repeat the same “the masc is the head of the household” b******t that I had grown up around. But somehow, I was clinging to remnants of a brittle masculine artifice. Theologians, social economists, sociologists, political scientists, and psychologists alike have written extensively on the intersections between sex, gender, and power, and how traditional gender roles are perpetuated in queer relationships. Queer people live in the same society as our cishet counterparts, and we are subject to the same patriarchal and misogynistic maladies, including those related to positioning within sexual acts. One historian notes that the legacy of bottoming as taboo dates back 2,500 years and is steeped in thinking that equates sexual passivity to feminization and, therefore, inferiority. We inherit these taboos from the Greeks and Romans, who chose to imbue sex acts based on position with no regard to one's selfhood. Topping was an act of masculine domination, whereas bottoming meant being feminized into submission. Only a top could desire someone else, their desire pushing them to take an active role. Meanwhile, a bottom was to be desired, passive, and dominated. Powerless. To ancient civilizations, it wasn't “gay”. It was just sex. But it was — and still is — about power.  In ‘The Long, Deep, Surprisingly Versatile History of Bottoms: From Ancient Greece to Modern Misogyny,' João Florêncio gathers that “all homophobia is inseparable from the patriarchy because homophobia is a form of misogyny. You hate gay men because they are closer to women, as if they betray masculinity by being penetrated.” And so-called bottom-shaming is just an extension of this internalized homophobia, a hatred of the perceived femininity within. This implicit misogyny runs rampant in queer circles as it does in heteronormative relationships. Queer relationships operate in a binary frame because much of our relationship playbook came from the dominant heteronormative culture, which finds comfort in binaries and punishes those who fall outside them. In many ways, the fight for queer recognition and equality has engendered assimilation into these regressive structures to achieve progress.When left unaddressed, internalized and externalized misogyny can be a source of contention, rotting the foundations of queer and cishet relationships alike. These binaries of male and female; masculinities and femininities; dominant and submissive; tops and bottoms: we can choose to reinforce or reject them as we see fit. In previous relationships where I showed up as a top, I've been cautious not to perpetuate these harmful norms, and tried my best to subvert them. The dynamics of this new relationship helped to accelerate the stripping away of decades of learned shame, bringing me closer to a more authentic version of myself. Yet insecurities are durable. ***I make great sandwiches, which unsurprisingly became my partner's recurring cravings to recharge after a romp. But after a few casual requests to make him one, I could no longer ignore the gnawing feeling in my stomach. I didn't want him to feel that just because I would bottom for him, I would cater to his every whim and put myself in a position of servitude. What role model would I be for other people more femme than myself? Should they resign themselves to traditional roles and succumb to society's expectations of mascs as providers and femmes as caretakers? So, I brought my feelings up with him. It wasn't easy for me, the once-unflappable vers top coming into vulnerable layers of himself. Still, I told him about the new and uncomfortable thoughts that I was having, the midnight ruminations, and how I associated these discomforts with our sex life. I told him that if he expected me to cook for him and clean up after him, I would come to resent him. It was a challenging conversation, but he listened. And he cared. He reassured me that it wasn't his intention to make me feel compelled to care for him just because he stuffed me with cum. He said that he didn't want to put me in an uncomfortable position or for me to feel compelled to do anything that I didn't want to do. After all, he assured me, consent is essential in every aspect of a relationship, and certainly within ours.  In the months since then, I've noticed a concerted change in his actions and my thinking. He asks whether he can make me a sandwich or if I can make him a coffee. I know that when he asks me for something to eat, it's not with any gendered expectation rooted in misogyny or an imbalance of power because I'm free to do the same. We're free to ask for help, support, and food when we need it. Food once acted as a wedge in our romantic relationship, but now it's a way for us to bond. We cook together. We wash each other's dishes after enjoying a juicy steak and cobb salad. Just because our sex life has a power balance where he is in physical control doesn't mean that this dynamic extends to other parts of our lives. We're partners. I'm changed by my new awareness of the nearly-fossilized shame that welled up in me upon penetration, conscious of how bottoming did away with the projections I had thus far believed to be true about myself. It confronted me with the naked truth of my own emotions and the social constructs that shape them. I'm disquieted by the shame I felt about being feminized — a reminder that this nascent balance we've found in our relationship is a choice, not a given. On a larger scale, I feel like living this equity is essential to advancing the politics of the queer community, sidestepping the hetero norms that have been laid out for us and forging our own ways of being and relating. (Power bottoming, anyone?)In the meantime, I'm still learning more about bottoming. My partner and I have had our fair share of messy encounters (we may have even had some painting). But he has been as patient with my process of getting to know my body in this new way as he was with my inner turmoil.  Maybe I'll get him to bottom next. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit feministfoodjournal.substack.com/subscribe

Is there social, political, economic, and cultural war being waged on fat bodies? Scholars have argued that fat stigma is contributing to the social and physiological harm of fat people and that this stigma is in fact a central driver of morbidity and mortality at a population level. For FFJ’s second issue, WAR, our editor Zoë brings you another episode of Feminist Food Stories featuring her conversation with two scholars working at the intersection of food studies and fat studies. They discuss the war on “obesity”, its roots, its manifestations in the food movement, and their hopes for fat food justice in the future.This podcast features writing, research, and sound editing by Zoë Johnson and original music from the Electric Muffin Research Kitchen. You can also listen to it on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.SHOWNOTESTranscriptRead the show transcript here.Further readingBlack Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C. (Ashanté M. Reese)Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness (Da’Shaun L. Harrison)“Can't Stomach It: How Michael Pollan et al. Made Me Want to Eat Cheetos” (Julie Guthman)“The Fallacy of Eating The Way Your Great-Grandmother Ate” (Virginia Sole-Smith)Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia (Sabrina Strings)Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement (Monica White)“It’s Not a Food Desert, It’s Food Apartheid” (Karen Washington)Modern Food, Moral Food: Self-Control, Science, and the Rise of Modern American Eating in the Early Twentieth Century (Helen Zoe Veit)“Public Health’s Power-Neutral, Fatphobic Obsession with ‘Food Deserts’”(Marquisele Mercedes)More activists and scholars to read, learn about, and follow:Cat PauséErica ZurawskiLindley AshlinePsyche Williams-ForsonRagen Chastain This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit feministfoodjournal.substack.com/subscribe

Paris, 1942. A group of women storm a grocery store on the Rue de Buci to seize the sardines on sale that day and distribute them to a hungry crowd. A scuffle ensues, shots ring out — and at the end, two policemen are dead. Today, the Rue de Buci event is remembered as an act of women’s resistance during wartime. But is that all there is to it?In this episode of Feminist Food Stories, founding editor Isabela sits down with Paula Schwarz, the Lois B. Watson Professor Emerita of French & Francophone Studies at Middlebury College and author of Today Sardines Are Not For Sale: A Street Protest in Occupied Paris, to discuss the intersections of wartime food politics and gender, and why and how resistance is remembered in different ways.This podcast features writing and research by Isabela Vera; sound editing by Isabela Vera & Zoë Johnson, and original music by the Electric Muffin Research Kitchen. You can also listen to it on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.SHOWNOTESTranscriptRead the show transcript here.Further readingBoyle, E. (n.d.). Wartime Memories: Louise Mardon. Brown, T. (2022). The Breadwinners: The Women Whose Hunger Drove the French Revolution. Feminist Food Journal. Hunt, K. (2010). The Politics of Food and Women's Neighborhood Activism in First World War Britain. International Labor and Working-Class History, 77(1), 8-26. doi:10.1017/S0147547909990226Schwartz, P. (1999). The politics of food and gender in occupied Paris. Modern & Contemporary France, 7:1, 35-45, DOI: 10.1080/09639489908456468. Schwartz, P. (2020). Today Sardines Are Not For Sale: A Street Protest in Occupied Paris. Oxford University Press. (If you’re interested in reading it, you can order it using the discount code here!) Get full access to Feminist Food Journal at feministfoodjournal.substack.com/subscribe

For this month’s Letter from the Editors, Zoë spoke with three feminist activists behind a virtual cooking class in support of Feminist Workshop (a Ukrainian NGO). In this podcast, they discuss food, war, and feminist organizing. This podcast was written and produced by Zoë Johnson with original music by the Electric Muffin Research Kitchen. SHOWNOTESTranscriptRead the show transcript here.ResourcesLearn more about Feminist Workshop and donate to their feminist and queer mutual aid in Lviv via GoFundMe;Check the list of feminist, LGBTQI, disability justice groups in Ukraine and donate to them directly;Read the Solidarity Statement and Call for Action; andFollow Sonaksha Iyengar, who did the beautiful graphics for Cooking Up Resistance.Featured Audio Clips Woman at war by Benedikt Erlingsson (2018): Ukrainian folk singers Feminist Workshop: “Sex, Freedom, Money: What more do feminists want? (“СЕКС, СВОБОДА, ГРОШІ: ЧОГО ЩЕ ХОЧУТЬ ФЕМІНІСТКИ?”)NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday: “Ukrainian women are volunteering to fight, continuing a tradition” Get full access to Feminist Food Journal at feministfoodjournal.substack.com/subscribe

This is the audio version of ‘The Childless Mothers’, a piece written by Lauren Gitlin for our MILK issue and read here by the author herself. Lauren is a former food scholar, journalist, and wine professional who currently owns and operates Villa Villekulla Farm, a goat microdairy in Barnard, Vermont. Get full access to Feminist Food Journal at feministfoodjournal.substack.com/subscribe

Through the lens of her mom’s non-kosher kitchen, Feminist Food Journal editor Isabela reflects on what it means for mothers to sacrifice for their children. This podcast features writing and research by Isabela Vera; sound editing by Isabela Vera & Zoë Johnson, and original music by the Electric Muffin Research Kitchen. You can also listen to it on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.SHOWNOTESTranscriptRead the show transcript here. PhotosMy mom and I enjoying French delights on a trip to Paris that we took in March 2005, lieu of my having a bat mitzvah. Further readings Get full access to Feminist Food Journal at feministfoodjournal.substack.com/subscribe

Milk is a highly contested beverage, but not always for the reasons you might think. In this episode of Feminist Food Stories (and as part of our MILK issue), editor Isabela looks at how milk is used as a tool of racial and gender oppression by both extremist alt-right forces and discreet government policies. For part of this story, she sits down with Alice Yao, an associate professor with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, to discuss Yao’s work on the links between milk consumption and Western imperialism.This podcast features writing and research by Isabela Vera; sound editing by Isabela Vera & Zoë Johnson, and original music by the Electric Muffin Research Kitchen. You can also listen to it on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.SHOWNOTESTranscriptRead the transcript of the show here.Further readingsFreeman, A. (2013). The Unbearable Whiteness of Milk: Food Oppression and the USDA. UC Irvine Law Review, Vol. 3, p. 1251, 2013. Stănescu, V. (2018). ‘White Power Milk’: Milk, Dietary Racism, and the ‘Alt-Right’, Animal Studies Journal, 7(2), 103-128. The Economist. (2015, March 28). No use crying: The ability to digest milk may explain how Europe got rich. Get full access to Feminist Food Journal at feministfoodjournal.substack.com/subscribe