Ten Questions For: Alicia Kennedy

An interview with the food writer who refuses to keep things simple.

Hello readers! Today I’m launching a new series, called 10 Questions For. It’s a series of short Q&As with some of the most interesting (mostly) women around: creatives, activists, entrepreneurs, and other people who are doing good work in this world. It’s also a pretty fun excuse for me to pose a bunch of questions to people I read, follow, and admire.

First up is Alicia Kennedy, a 37-year-old food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, who writes From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, one of my favorite newsletters. Alicia writes about food, but also about all the ways in which food is more complicated than just what we put in our mouths — how it matters to our identities, to our planet, to reinforcing hierarchies or dismantling them. She writes about food as protest and food as politics; food as potential pleasure and food as potential exploitation; food as creation and consumption and resistance and repression; food as a way of bringing oneself home, and food as a way of keeping others out. And she writes from an explicitly feminist view, which I suspect readers of this newsletter will find particularly compelling.

Alicia’s book, No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating, is out on August 15, 2023. You can preorder it now, and catch her on tour this fall. Now, here’s Alicia on what drives her work, and what it means for food to be political, what she wishes for the world.

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Jill Filipovic: Tell us a little bit about what you do.

Alicia Kennedy: I'm an essayist who writes about food and culture.

Jill: Why is your work important in the world? (Yes, it’s ok to brag about yourself). 

Alicia: I think, or I hope, that my work bridges audiences and references between mainstream food media, academic food studies, and arts and culture more broadly. Whether you're into feminist autotheory, the role of recipes under communism, or Ina Garten, there's something in my work for you. Honestly, writing that all down, these really aren't that unrelated! I can probably write an essay where they all come together, considering the beauty and drudgery of women's work in the kitchen and the performance of it on social media, where algorithms perform a kind of game show role in determining winners and losers, is my current obsession.

Jill: Walk us down your career path. How did you get here? Which choices / jobs / people helped you to get to where you are?