> in which I consider working in food politics
You're tuning into Cheers, a newsletter made by Tiffany Xie. This week: Soupbone updates, culturally confused meals, space is the place, the carcinogenosphere, and the end of capitalism?
Hello friend,
> My dad made 酒酿 this weekend so of course I had some for breakfast. Sweet, syrupy, funky, delicious. I’m already waiting for the next batch. Which reminds me of this beautiful essay, “Fermentation,” by Joy Grace Chen.
> I’m part of a humanities collective called Soupbone and we have a new website! And our first resident, Kathrina Espinosa! And new social media! I’d love if you stopped by our digital garden and left a note.
> Cooking up: these whole wheat chocolate oat cookies (my mom’s review: “these taste too healthy,” but honestly I’m kind of into that). Also Nutella brownies and lemon pudding cake. I guess I’m in a dessert kind of mood. Send me your favorite dessert recipes?
> Speaking of cooking, I’m really into these cooking videos from June Xie. The videos masquerade as clickbait-y “I MADE A WEEK OF DINNERS FOR TWO FOR $25 IN NYC” but it’s more like a chaotic Chinese American perfoming wizardry in a hot kitchen to create culturally confused meals. Also we have the same last name, and my birthday is in June. I’m not biased.
> Since we’re talking about food media, I started listening to podcasts about food politics and I quite like them? More than I was expecting? So much so that I’m starting to think about how I can finagle working with food as part of a medical career.
> I don’t know a lot about food politics, but reading articles from Civil Eats seems like a good place to start.
> I’m moving up Farming While Black on my to-read list because one of the aforementioned podcasts was an interview with Leah Penniman, the author, also the founder of Soul Fire Farm, a self-described “Afro-Indigenous centered community farm committed to uprooting racism and seeding sovereignty in the food system.” Which seems sort of like an impossible task, but it’s amazing how Soul Fire does the work.
> Watching: Sun Ra’s Space is the Place, which Darren recommended to me so long ago when I asked him about Afrofuturism. I’m sorry it took me so long! It’s so good! It’s so weird! It makes me feel complicit! It makes me feel giddy and uncomfortable, especially this moment, when Sun Ra addresses a group of Black youth:
I’m not real, I’m just like you. You don’t exist in this society. If you did your people wouldn’t be seeking equal rights.
> Reading: Anne Boyer’s The Undying, which is a cancer memoir in name but is really about cancers in the plural—Anne’s particular experience as a breast cancer patient and also the social construction of cancer, how it operates within institutions/race/class/and all that, or how Anne puts it: “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy’s ruinous carcinogenosphere.”
> From “Revolutionary Letter #9” by Diane di Prima:
advocating
the overthrow of a government is a crime
overthrowing it is something else
altogether, it is sometimes called
revolution
but don’t kid yourself: government
is not where it’s at: it’s only
a good place to start:
1. kill head of Dow Chemical
2. destroy plant
3. MAKE IT UNPROFITABLE FOR THEM to build again,
i.e., destroy the concept of money
as we know it, get rid of interest,
savings, inheritance
(Pound’s money, as dated coupons that come in the mail
to everyone, and are void in 30 days
is still a good idea)
or, let’s start with no money at all and invent it
if we need it
or, mimeograph it and everyone
print as much as they want
and see what happens
> Illusions brought to you by our first-ever Soupbone resident, Kat!
Cheers,
Tiffany