Why Is Tinned Fish ‘Hot Girl Food’ Now?

By the ‘you are what you eat’ logic, junk food makes for junk people, and unfamiliar food makes for strange, ‘different’ people. It’s worth questioning the assumptions we make about what’s normal, plain, right or good in food, and what’s not. Often, these judgements we make about food and identity say much more about the person airing them than the

Alison Roman: “People are so brand-conscious now, and I think they’ve become that way about food. ‘Are those the Fishwife anchovies?’ No, it’s Cento. Or some Spanish brand you’ve never heard of, but it’s the same anchovies inside the tin. People are too conscious about choosing the ‘right’ thing that signifies their taste level, or who they are as

It’s a strange split: in our society, food and women are traditionally dismissed as frivolous, fanciful, feminine things, while also being the stuff of nightmares.

Sometimes we lose all of this magic in the margins. Even though food is everywhere in our social fabric and in our culture, it’s still squeezed into one thing or another. Diet gurus make food the sum of calories and carbs. Self-avowed foodies use food as a code for class. Restaurant critics polish food into a smooth, substance-less thing, while foo

Ultimately, we’re terrified by the idea of women eating, being hungry, and getting healthier, heavier and happier. This is a world where the boundaries between consumption and self-denial, power and passivity often trace the crude line dividing men and women.

We live in a time when food is more polarised than ever, a huge chasm yawning between ‘thoughtful’, ‘foodie’ cooking on the one hand, and fast ‘junk’ food on the other.

our attitudes to food in general are so messed up that we muddle vegetables with salvation, and emptiness with virtue, what does that mean for the ways we treat the less fortunate among us?