Drag Queens Are The Only Food Personalities For Me
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If you'll allow me to share a hot take, it is this: Anthony Bourdain's passing left a void in food media that many have tried to fill—and only drag queens are coming close.
Ever since Bourdain's untimely passing in 2018, I've watched food TV rush to fill the empty space he left, with many attempts coming up hollow, disingenuous, and sometimes kind of snobby. It felt like with each passing year, we were getting even further away from honoring his legacy, while food shows continue to fill my Netflix queue.
That is, until drag queens began to sashay their way out of the brunch circuit. In a sea of shows that question whether something is cake or not, or who makes the "best" brunch/pizza/cocktail, drag queens are the only people I want to see on my food shows going forward. And thankfully, they're coming out in droves to serve up way more than eggs Benedict.
Take Drag Me To Dinner, in which hosts Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka have teams of drag queens put on elaborately themed dinner parties. Themes like "Tupperware Party," "Tailgate Weiner Roast," and "Tropical Kiki" prove to be a delightful challenge to queens you'll likely be familiar with from RuPaul's Drag Race like Latrice Royale, Morgan McMichaels, and Jinkx Monsoon. As you could expect, chaos ensues each and every episode (and thank goddess it does), because the resulting slap-stick absurdity is such a balm to the buttoned-up food shows where being "best" is the end all be all.
At its core, both Bourdain and drag queens subvert the ways we approach food and go far beyond what's on the plate. If Bourdain forced us to look at the hands that make our food in shows like Parts Unknown, drag queens double-down by parodying outdated ideas of who belongs in the kitchen. To both, there is no shying away from how political food can be; nor is there a moment of schmaltzy sentimentalism that can often overshadow the real food issues that plague us, like gender, class, and access.
In both cases, discovery, activism, and fun are the entire point, instead of being first-on-the-trend or gatekeepers to a food movement. Long a safe space for members of the LGBTQ+ community, drag brunches brought a decidedly nighttime activity to the daytime, and have evolved enough to bring drag even further into the mainstream (drag queen story-time, anyone?). And that's not even to mention Taco Bell's own brunch tour that was helmed by long-time queen Kay Sedia, and the food podcast, 1-For-The-Table, in which drag queen Kim Chi serves serious realness on how you don't need to be an expert to speak passionately about food.
With the sharp-tongue and quick wit reminiscent of Bourdain, drag queens like Ginger Minj and Shaquanda are even rolling out their own Southern-inspired cookbooks and hot sauce brands, respectively. Redefining the outdated goal of being a "domestic goddess," with the Martha-Stewart-Ina-Garten aspirational polish of it all, drag queens are the tastemakers to follow for a good time.
Sure, even I can admit that Bourdain likely wouldn't be caught lip-syncing to "Sissy That Walk," but I've got a sneaky feeling he, too, would like drag queens to shantay and stay right where they belong (on our screens).
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