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In this B-Side, you’ll find that food acts as a way of telling stories. From Allison Wei’s journeys through joy and celebration with cake to Graciela Batlle Cestero’s ode to her mother’s chicken soup, each writer has found a way to connect their lives to food. And it’s no mistake that thinking about food unlocks so many powerful memories. It’s something so integral to our survival, yet so malleable to forces like creativity, love and grief. Food, and by extension cooking, is art. It’s a way for us to express ourselves — our talents, our desires and our feelings for others. It is so incredibly human of us to take the things that fulfill one of our most basic needs and turn them into community-building, culture-defining works of art.
So take a moment and read through these pieces. Think about the last great meal you had, or maybe the last terrible one. Find where food factors into your life, and what your relationship with it might be. Appreciate the act of consuming something prepared for you — whether by your own hands or somebody else’s.
We’ve all gotta eat, after all.
— Senior Arts Editor Hunter Bishop