13. ‘The Gay Cookbook’ makes a meal of camp and serves it up with a side of LGBTQ+ activism

GILLIAN MANFORD | ARCHIVES CLERK

...in that magic hour 'tween day and dark, after effacing the ravages of the day's toil, and before the night's serious cruising, ya gotta take on some food. Man, woman, or child, a girl has got to eat!

— The Gay Cookbook, page 7

The year is 1965. Homosexuality is illegal in most of the world, the Stonewall Riots are still four years away, and those defying gender norms through their relationships, gender presentation, or behaviour are considered immoral, deviant, and dangerous.

However, that same year Chef Lou Rand Hogan presented a different vision of queer life in his cookbook The Gay Cookbook.

Hogan’s book could easily be mistaken for a novelty, joke, or political statement. In reality, it’s all three, and a usable recipe guide as well.

An ad in the 1965 New York Times suggested that “Straights and other types of squares will find much to enjoy [in the cookbook],” inviting in curious readers, while also teasingly associating them with ‘squares.’ Squares were those old fashioned moralists who, by 1965, were finding themselves in opposition to the progressivism of ‘60s counterculture.

In the 1960s, humorous, niche, and culturally specific cookbooks proliferated. As Hogan explains in his book, “there seem to be new jazzy cookbooks for everyone, for every type, every temperament. A mad, mad, mad Editor has coyly suggested: ‘Oh hell, May, why don't you people have a cookbook? After all, you're supposed to be 'one-in-six', and that's a lot of cooking!’”

Despite Hogan’s lighthearted manner, the growing movements for gender, racial, and sexual equality played out in the pages of many mid-century culinary guides. Some brought serious attention to underrepresented cultural foodways, while others used humour to target problematic norms. In this case, Hogan uses the medium to critique the heteronormative concepts of gender and domesticity. This combination of elements become ‘camp,’ a term often associated with queer modes of entertainment and expression, as well as the aesthetics of the mid-century period.

Writer and activist Susan Sontag examined this elusive concept in her 1964 essay Notes on ‘Camp.’ Sontag explained that camp is intentional, exaggerated, and ‘deadly serious,’ despite appearances suggesting otherwise. The idea had long been present in queer communities, but by the 1960s it had taken on a political dimension.

Camp embraces the artificial, and in doing so, also exposes artifice. By taking ideas held seriously and dearly by the dominant culture (in this case, mid-century heteronormative ideals of domesticity, gender roles, and gender expression) and viewing them through the lens of camp, these norms are exposed as constructions, their dominance over society questioned, and those living outside of those norms given greater agency over their own narrative.

Through camp, Hogan challenges readers to reflect on conflicting stereotypes perpetuated by mainstream society. For example, how can gay men be both deviant and dangerous, while also effeminate, weak, and ridiculed?

Hogan and illustrator David Costain take the mainstream perception of queer people away from the back alleys, dingy bars, and jail cells to which they’d been relegated, and mock quaint mid-century domesticity. An illustration of a gay couple sitting at the kitchen table—one masculine presenting figure who is large and bearded; the other, more feminine in a floral apron (see photo to the upper right)—reflects domestic imagery from the period, queering the American familial ideal.

Throughout his book, Hogan reappropriates the language of heteronormative homemaking by simultaneously mocking these traditions and inviting in those who have been excluded. In the chapter on meat-based dishes, ‘What to Do With a Tough Piece of Meat,’ Hogan writes, “Men enjoy real, genuine, honest to Gawd Corned Beef Hash; so let's make em happy.” He both adopts and subverts the trope of the housewife using her domestic skills to keep a happy husband while employing a few campy double entendres along the way.

The Comstock Laws—the same ones that prohibited the distribution of birth control by U.S. mail—would’ve had this book banned for ‘promoting sexual deviance’ and labelled it too obscene for the post, greatly restricting it’s reach and accessibility. However, by the mid ‘60s these laws were in dispute, and, in Hogan’s book, saucy illustrations abound. Men dance the Can-Can in a recipe for French Dressing (see photo on next page) and recline in bowls of Fruit Salad (see photo below). The text is sprinkled with camp witticisms and cheeky culinary suggestions, using jargon that would have been opaque to straight readers, like instructing penny-pinching hosts to “Save that imported Sherry (at $7.80) for someone really elegant; serve the .98 cent stuff to that casual trade.”

The Gay Cookbook has practical uses, too. Hogan’s work as a chef on international cruises influenced his menus, as did the post-war fashion for ‘exotic’ travel as a marker of middle class consumption and cosmopolitanism.

Hogan teases those adhering to fussy, outdated ideas of sophistication and antiquated performances of queerness. “We all know a mad character…who puts pineapple-cheese…on round crackers, and tops this with a candied violet, no less. Gawd, Mabel, how gay can you get?” Instead, Hogan suggests

impressing guests with menus of saffron rice, Thai and Indian curries, and Polynesian preparations of raw fish with fruit. Walking readers through exoticised recipes, he allows them to engage with new markers of class and performative multiculturalism.

Cocktail and dinner party menus figure prominently in The Gay Cookbook, emphasizing the importance of chosen family—providing opportunities to commiserate, build community, and of course, meet like-minded friends. At Hogan’s ideal gatherings, “The guests help themselves (do they ever!) and ignore the host. He, however, is then able to single out that muscular type and ask him to come into the kitchen and help loosen the ice-tray.”

Hogan also speaks to those living alone, on a budget, or with little cooking experience; in other words, much of his target audience:

The book provides simple solutions for the single cook with know that a simple dish is quite often more satisfactory than something that costs a lot, and is a lot of trouble to make.”

What both The Gay Cookbook’s party menus and everyday recipes have in common is a depiction of a happy, fulfilled domestic life filled with chosen family. This stands in contrast to the contemporary understanding of queer life as deviant, dangerous, and ultimately lonely.

In Hogan’s world, multi dimensional lives are lived out through domestic moments— from raucous parties and candlelit dinner dates, to quick and inexpensive meals for one. He presents a version of gay life to a curious public—the ‘straights and squares’—while preserving inside references, jokes, and asides that serve as a comforting wink and nod to queer peers.

A trendy late ‘60s housewife could use this book to whip up an international dinner party and showcase her trendy progressivism; but more importantly, the queer community could see themselves on the page. They could see their language, humour, and lives, and revel in the domestic queer joy held up as a symbol of the recognition and equality that they were (and still are) fighting for.

Many sad souls come home from a rough day over the ribbon counter… and face the prospect of wading into that grim little kitchenette to whip up something cheap and filling. No 'little woman' to greet him at the door…So we'll offer here a sort of nonsensical cookbook for the androgynous…we do not hesitate to assure the reader that all preparations and recipe details are honest and practical. time and money saving shortcuts, as well as the assertion that “Old (and well-seasoned) chefs will

Photos from The Gay Cookbook (Lou Rand Hogan, USA: Sherbourne Press, Inc., 1965), Canadian Cookbook Collection, Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library, TX715.6ZZ7500.

For 23 years, Bob has made it his mission to serve up good food and good times to U of G students. Whether you're in need of a quick meal or a just friendly face, come say hi to Bob at his hot dog stand just east of Branion Plaza.