from the fridge to the frying pan: An Introduction
From a very young age, I’ve been preoccupied with taste. I still distinctly remember watching a live action Snow White film as a child and seeing Snow rip apart a loaf of rustic looking bread before biting into it. Even as a three year old, I imagined what the bread would taste like–yeasty and burnt around the bottom in a way that would still taste nice against the tenderness of the inside. Reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I’d taste the marvelous candies as I read. Once I began cooking and baking myself, I began to dream about food, then create it into being–new recipes of my own–tasting creations that I’d translate into the waking world.
I read books about food, cookbooks cover-to-cover. Donuts were a favorite, so I tried every new donut I came across, in search of flavors. Food is an easy thing to enjoy–it provides sustenance, there is endless variety. From the delicate ways that different chilis give different levels and kinds of heat, the slow burn of some and the burst of warmth from others, to how different types of cheese melt into different textures, there’s always something to make a twist on. I’ve spent hours trying different spices, letting them linger on my tongue, so that I can truly understand their depth of flavor. But, on another level, what makes it so easy to love food is that it also connects us to one another, to our homes, to our past. Whether it’s a family tradition, a memory of a specific meal with a specific person, or how cooking reunites you with your own culture, food holds a place for all of us.
But, I also have to live with an understanding that the ability to get certain ingredients, cook certain dishes comes with privilege. From food deserts to how many people go hungry to climate devastation that wipes out whole plants from existence, we live in a time where thinking about food does (and should) come with deep consideration about how we consume it.
When I was asked to be the editor of this column, I tried to think of all the issues I’d like to see writers tackle and realized the list was gigantic. However, that’s not very helpful. So I thought instead about what I’d call it–from the fridge to the frying pan. I liked the idea of the things we keep on hand, the necessities. Outside of the most basic functional cookware, no one needs any special tools to cook, ultimately (as much as I love my microplaner and my mini bundt pan). We simply need our ingredients and a way to cook them.
So for this particular call for submissions, I’d like your necessities. It might be a deep dive into the history of an ingredient you always have on hand, a remembrance of a meal that your family used to make when the cupboard was running bare, an interview with a parent about how they managed meals for a family, a researched essay on a vegetable that may not exist in a few years and what that will mean to a way of living. Whatever’s necessary.
I look forward to being fed by your words.
Please send your submissions–complete drafts and/or pitches–to chloe@anomalouspress.org. They’ll be accepted on a rolling basis, unless you see me put up a new call. Length is open, but we ask all of our contributors to consider screen fatigue. Please include a bio with your submission.
Can’t wait,
Chloe N. Clark
Editor, from the fridge to the frying pan
