“When our souls are happy, they talk about food.” - Charles Simic, from The Life of Images

It seems strange — or what’s the word — unseasoned (to borrow a cooking term) that we should be releasing an issue dedicated to food, even amidst the current shifting feelings of hope and loss / joy and grief / restlessness and tension that accompany the current crisis in this country.

But perhaps the issue comes at just the right time. Rather than serve as a mere memorial to the way we used to see food and the role it plays in our lives, the issue reminds us that food, food justice, food equality, food culture, etc., remain vital to our existence as human beings.

When I consider my own Hungarian lineage and the cultural remnants passed on through my mother and grandmother, more often than not food remains central. Why? Because food brings us together. It’s part of what connects us — to each other, to the earth. When I smell the lard and onions and paprika cooking in the next room, I’m feeling rooted in something sacred that continues when I sit with my family and speak our shared language. Even when we no longer speak the language of our ancestors, often some recipe remains that gets passed down through generations.

Many of the pieces in this issue that speak to this. Others utilize food as a kind of backdrop around which grief and joy take the stage. They consider the implications of their origins. Still other pieces simply express the joy at partaking in something delicious.

And who are we to deny that joy, even at this time. So I ask you to partake in something delicious — and read through the exquisite work here in this issue. Enjoy it. Share it. And remember it.