Introduction to Issue 50 • Food & Feasting

While every living thing needs to eat (or otherwise gather nutrients), the idea of ‘food’ is innately human. We make our sustenance taste good, taste better, taste warm or frozen or spicy or bitter (on purpose!). Food is essential to life, and feasting is essential to culture. It’s what connects me to my family, to my friends. The diversity of food items, real and imagined, that grace this issue is a testament to just how vital food is for showing and shaping identity. I would feel adrift in a Soylent-exclusive future without food to connect me to my past or to other people. On the other hand, the depictions of food and feasting in speculative poetry and fiction makes the distant worlds feel tangible to me.

In selecting for this issue, I delighted in poems that led me to see food in a different light, made me laugh, or allowed me a moment of breath and reflection. There were many more wonderful poems that I was unable to share with you, and I am overjoyed at how many different takes people found on the same subject.

I sincerely thank you for reading this, the 50th (!) issue of Eye to the Telescope. I hope that you eat well in the days to come.