Bon Appetit's Grilling Issue (the pre-purge/retroactive racism-exists wakeup edition): OBSERVATIONS

Before we get to the grilling (featuring a whole lotta dudes and one cutie patootie blondie whose husband made her a backyard oven, isn't he sweet, then, OOPSIE, she set her ponytail on fire), there are MANY uses of "global pantry" (Asian) ingredients in recipes by white people.

BA's grilling "expert" is a guy named Brad, who has "an extremely chill attitude" (look at him in his grass skirt and no shoes) but is kinda "chaotic," which is "where associate food editor Sohla El-Waylly comes in." She's there to wrestle all that wild-man energy into recipes.

In other words, Brad (who, it turns out, is one of BA's resident Youtube stars) is there to be the face and the "attitude", while Sohla is there to do the work.

El-Waylly, you may recall, is the underpaid editor who asked BA EIC Adam Rapoport to resign over photos he and his wife took in brownface and offensive costumes stereotyping Puerto Rican people. Her story also sparked widespread outrage about racial disparities at Conde Nast.

In short, El-Waylly is more experienced than many in BA's test kitchen and is often called upon by the white talent on their hugely popular videos to demonstrate techniques or do things for them, but she was paid nothing for her appearances, and paid less than white staffers.

You can read more about that here: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/21287732/bon-appetit-sohla-adam-rapoport-resigned-duckor-food-racism

The way she is treated as a footnote in this piece about a white manchild illustrates a larger problem in the industry in general (so many stories about famous chefs whose recipes came via unpaid education from unnamed grandmas) but also in food media in particular.

Food media has forEVER celebrated angry, volatile white male chefs (and later written their redemption stories—see: Sean Brock.) Turning the lens onto white, conventionally pretty women has made things slightly more fair for white women while leaving WOC behind.

White women at BA have gotten Internet famous while women like El-Waylly (and all the women and men of color who never get a chance at places like BA because they aren't connected or want to write about things that are too "exotic," like "food from Africa"), are left behind.

One (not totally unrelated) thing that I hope will happen with Rapoport gone is that BA will ease up on the insistence that Anyone! Who! Does! Not! Drink! All! The! Time! is boring, abnormal, and basically sucks.

So much of the content is based on the premise that nothing is fun without booze. BA is a magazine marketed at women, so there's tons of "Rosé all day" style content, but there is also absolutely gobsmacking shit like this :

Yes, that is an advice column where the LEAD question is: "Help! What do I do in the event of a DRY wedding?!" and the question next to it is how one can possibly get through an ENTIRE FEW-HOUR-LONG WEDDING with only two alcohol options, neither of them above 30 proof.

The answer to the first is to "respect your nondrinking friends" by getting plowed in the parking lot before you have to spend a couple hours tolerating these lame people before you can split at 9:15 (when nondrinkers all go to bed, apparently) and go get shitfaced.

(Note, I am not an advice columnist but you are not "respecting" someone's sobriety by showing up to their wedding wasted. You're actually telling them you can't stand them sober.)

And the answer to the second question—how to tolerate a wedding with ONLY unlimited amounts of beer and wine—is to sneak in a flask. ALLOW ME TO TIE THIS BACK TO THE OVERWHELMING WHITE MASCULINITY OF FOOD MEDIA.

An interesting thing about this whole advice page is that only two of the questions are from people with male names ("Willy" and "Craig.") Although BA is aimed at women, this sends a message about what women should tolerate at their weddings, and in life in general.

I know that there are some white religious people in the US who don't drink and wouldn't dream of serving alcohol (obviously they'd serve milk in champagne flutes, like in the picture), but there are also LOTS of nonwhite cultures for which a "DRY wedding?!" is pretty standard.

This suggests that the presumed audience for BA is a very specific type of urban white upper-middle-class woman: One who drinks rosé and lo-carb seltzers (see pic) but who wants to make sure everyone knows that she's cool with guys who can't stand weddings unless they're plowed.

Thus the intertwined oppressions of racism and misogyny entrap us all. So @bonappetit, fire your staff, hire a bunch of young people of color, make them famous, pay them a lot of money, and stop pushing these antediluvian gender and racial stereotypes on your audience.