The 1960s initiated some of the ideological, cultural, political, and social movements that would forever change the status quo world, with the United States as one of the epicenters of those transformations. The homosexual activism would not culminate until the 70s, with the Stonewall riots in 1969 as a fuse, but a paradigm shift was already taking place in which the domestic would play a crucial role.
In the 1960s, the vast majority of American society still viewed homosexuals as depraved who led obscene lives, deviated from straight moral values, and dangerous. But what until then was believed to be almost limited to secrecy began to manifest itself in other layers of American lifewith the presence of homosexuals -especially men- in theater, music, fashion, cinema or television.
The worlds of art and culture made homosexuals more and more visible because, although they continued to raise a lot of criticism and reactions against them, their supposedly depraved and effeminate behavior was tolerated in those areas. Until a cookbook arrived to precisely and proudly assert itself the most camp of gay life.
The book reaffirms the daily life of homosexual life through cooking
It was the year 1965 and ‘The gay cookbook’ (“The gay cookbook”) signed by a certain chef Lou Rand Hogan came to vindicate the domesticity and everyday life of homosexuals, embracing what was most criticized or feared about gay men, their character effeminate, provocative and effeminate. And he did it claiming the home and social life as a space to live with freedom, not as a closed place in which to hide public life.
A book conceived in the kitchens of a cruise ship
The book quickly became very popular thanks largely to the impact it had in different media, both for and against. The gay cookbook it did not come out of nowhere as an exceptional work; homosexuality and its activism increasingly counted on more presence in the media and the end of censorship allowed more publications and works aimed at the gay public to appear, also with appearances in cinema or television, although they were still stereotyped.
An opinion piece published in January 1966 in the magazine Timeentitled ‘The homosexual in America’ criticized this activism and the growing visibility of gays in the country, with special emphasis on how the majority “apparently they didn’t want a cure” for their sexuality. As an example she cited Hogan’s recently published book, berating his shameless attitude.
who exactly was Lou Rand Hogan He remains a mystery to this day, since his figure as a culinary writer or author would not go down in history, as other pioneers of LGBTQ cuisine have done, such as James Beard, already active at the time. The historian stephen vider gives us some insights into his life, such as that his real name was Louis Randall and that he was born in Bakersfield, California in 1910.
Initially interested in the theater, the lack of success in his acting career led him to work as stewardess on the new cruise line of the Matson company, where he began to make his first steps in the kitchen and came into contact with different international cuisines, thus getting to know other cuisines both on his travels and through the chefs of different nationalities who worked for the wealthy clientele.
In fact, Vider remarks, that experience allowed him to learn the ins and outs of the wealthy classhaute cuisine and its fashions, as well as the culture itself camp with the effeminate mannerisms and exaggerated elegance that were already associated with the gaythen, according to later statements by Hogan himself, the vast majority of cruise ship attendants, waiters and stewardesses were homosexual.
After his journey through the seas, Hogan began working as a crime novel writer and contributor to various publications, including, allegedly, the culinary magazine gourmand. After achieving some prominence with ‘The Gay Detective’ in 1961, his culminating work would be the first openly homosexual cookbook to be published. questioned views on gender turning them around with an ironic tone and large doses of humor.
The kitchen as the vanguard of gay domesticity
Already the design of the cover itself clearly reflects the intentions of the book, with illustrations showing a effeminate man cooking elegant and happy for his refined guests, among whom appears a transvestite man chatting quietly with another, holding Martini glasses.
“The complete cookbook campy [amanerada, amariposada] and men’s menus…or whatever you’ve got,” read the cover. The book offers a selection of what Hogan learned that was then considered essential in any social eventencompassing a potpourri of dishes of all kinds that today could be linked to the old-fashioned cuisine of the American parties of that time, such as crab canapés, hor d’ouvresshrimp cocktail, oysters or chicken to the king.
The book includes classic American and French dishes, but also exotic ones, including paella
But there is also space in its pages to international dishes and more exotic, beyond the French cuisine in fashion at the time, a reflection of what he was able to learn in his cruise experience. Thus, he includes Asian, Hawaiian and Mexican recipes, some long and complex, and even mentions the Spanish paella, but without giving the specific recipe.
And it is that Hogan too goes to practical, without conceiving his work as what would be a typical cookbook today. Paella would then be too expensive for a single host due to the high price of seafood and saffron, but guacamole, in its original Mexican version “before it’s been screwed up by some Hollywood or Brooklyn chef,” he writes, just needs avocado, tomatoes, fresh lime and salt.
The entire book is written with humor, irony and innuendo typical of gay culture, such as the initial phrase as a dedication that reads “All rights reserved, Mary” (“all rights reserved, Mary); one of the usual nicknames used among homosexuals, often in a derogatory or condescending tone, and he is not shy about giving advice such as making friends with the local butcher by asking him for the cheapest meat with a smile and a suggestive tone.
Maybe The gay cookbook it was not the first cooking publication signed by a homosexual author and that today seems somewhat outdated. But, as Vider concludes, it did present a different image of the life of the white gay man of the time, far from secrecy and shame. Cooking and cooking for friends thus became a reflection of homosexual domestic lifeeveryday and cosmopolitan, also open to the rest of society.
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