It doesn’t have to be about the food you prepare from fresh ingredients, bought from vendors at the wet market, perfectly balanced between “hot” and “cold” humors that Chinese doctor (or even a Chinese grandmother) would approve of. It can be an ode to the wonders of processed junk, or the repudiation of the very need for food, a yearning for the day when a single pill will serve all of our nutritional needs.
But food is emotion, and any poem, essay, or story will be lacking of there is no mention of the joy, the guilt, the anger and even the sorrow of one particular meal, or recipe, or moody forkful.
Or: the lack of food is rich with somber narrative possibility. Sometimes that lack is unrelated to the quantity or nutritive value of what we eat, and has everything to do with who prepared it, and how (and why).
We can consider literature a kind of food. It is not uncommon to hear of someone being starved for anything decent to read. Every bot-generated, algorithmically-tweaked bit of unwholesome “content” that dulls our brains and fattens us to sickly repletion deserves an extended metaphor - an apostrophe, even - comparing it to the highly processed stuff that we mindlessly consume at the table.
And last: perhaps love is the true sustenance of our lives. It has fed authors’ hunger for stuff to put in their poetry since words were first written. If you would like to submit a recipe, by all means, do so, but make it interesting to read. (We only ask that it be suitable for general consumption; a poisoned apple can wreak havoc on a relationship.) What exotic berry, gold-flecked pudding, or single spoonful of congee can best show how we feel?
The theme for issue #5 is FOOD. Submissions open April 1-30, 2024. Issue #5 will be published in June 2024. Visit our submissions page for more details.