Academia Food and Drink

Issues Of Earth-Rumbling Import

January 12, 2026 by David 167 Comments

Meanwhile, at Boston University, enormous thoughts are being had:

“How is that different if you’re gay? How is that different if you’re non-binary? How is that different if you’re polyamorous?” she asked.

The she in question is Professor Megan Elias.

Oh, and she’s talking about food.

Obviously.

The question “what is queer food?” is, we’re told by Professor Elias, “a question that’s coming up a lot lately.” If only among academics desperate for an angle, an excuse for claiming a salary and wasting other people’s time. Academics much like Professor Elias.

Elias said she does not have a definition for what “queer food” is, but wants “recognition” it exists.

Welcome to the bleeding edge of human mental activity.

Quite how one can edit “an illustrated guide to queer food,” complete with recipes, as Professor Ilias has, while simultaneously being unable to define what such a thing is, should it exist, is a question I leave to the reader.

Though a review of said book does offer a clue:

What is queer food? Just like our community, it resists definition… It is a historical absence we honour through our imaginations. It is the food we cook to heal ourselves, and the food we cook for the people we love.

So “queer food,” it turns out, is not in fact a thing. It’s just whatever people who describe themselves as “queer” – a subset of insufferable misfits – happen to eat. While talking about themselves and how terribly “queer” they are.

Specifics of the professor’s course content are, as one might imagine, a little sketchy, beyond the obligatory claims of things being “disrupted” and “interrogated,” albeit in ways not altogether clear, or indeed convincing.

We are, however, informed that the credulous and self-absorbed will be invited to ponder what they might eat on a first date – because that’s totally worth those annual fees of $90,000 – and “how [their] food choice is representing [their] gender identity.”  Which is a thing that food should do, apparently.

Oh, and the aforementioned,

“How is that different if you’re gay? How is that different if you’re non-binary? How is that different if you’re polyamorous?”

On grounds that being, say, “polyamorous” – i.e., a neurotic slag – may, in ways unexplained, determine how much you like lasagne or carrots.

Such is the sophistication of our times.

Those so inclined – and with nothing better to do – are welcome to reflect on yesterday’s dinner, or this morning’s breakfast, and then explain to the rest of the class how those foodstuffs “represent” your “gender identity.”

I’ll award points for contrivance.

Readers may recall our adventures in “queered” history, which is like history, but less so. And, as above, much more self-involved.

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