voices in food.

Stories from the heart.

If you love cooking, expressing yourself through the food you create is part of what makes it rewarding. That’s never more important than for the LGBTQIA+ community, for whom Pride – celebrated throughout summer worldwide – has become a symbol of unity and support. We asked chefs, cooks and food writers to share their very personal stories

INTERVIEWS GURDEEP LOYAL

Cardamom and orange yeasted buns with rainbow icing

PHOTOGRAPHS INDIA WHILEY-MORTON FOOD STYLING POLLYANNA COUPLAND

“My food embraces all taste possibilities, exploring the boundaries between culinary cultures, echoing my feelings of inbetweenness”

GURDEEP LOYAL

“My queerness and Indianness are both foundational facets of my identity – and food is my canvas for joyfully expressing their intersection at full volume on a plate. There’s a queer sensibility to my cooking: I take an uninhibited approach to combining a spectrum of flavours, challenging traditional rules around what you can and can’t put into a dish. My food embraces all possibilities when it comes to taste; exploring the boundaries between culinary cultures that echo my own feelings of ‘inbetweenness’ as a second-generation queer British Indian food writer.

I didn’t feel able to come out to my family until my 30s, so Pride season has always been an important moment in my year – a time to outwardly celebrate the bonds I have with my chosen ‘queer family’ through collective feasting, where everyone is invited. Whether it’s the pink-prawn linguine one friend makes on repeat, another friend’s underbaked gooey-gay brownies or another’s Pride man-hattans (essentially a cocktail glass of maraschino cherries), these are foods that unite us at this time.

Pride is a protest that celebrates the multiplicity of LGBTQIA+ experience today and throughout history; and food is a powerful way of proclaiming that diversity in all its delicious glory.”

THE STICKY BUN BOYS

“Sharing your food with others lets them into a part of you, which helps transcend differences”

Michael says... “There’s a communality to food; a sense of sharing – when you cook something, you spend time and care on it, and there’s something innately humanising about that. Sharing your food with others lets them into a part of you, which helps transcend differences and allows people to see people as people.

“I’d love to see more inclusivity of other cultures and ethnic backgrounds – the queer community is hugely underrepresented in the food industry. It would be brilliant to see more of their talents. The driver for us all in the next five years should be pulling more chairs up to the table.”