Editors’ note: Happy day of love, dear readers. February 14th is a special day in the FFJ calendar — it’s the date we announced the launch of our first issue, MILK, back in 2022. It’s incredible to think we are now working on our tenth issue; so much has happened in that time.
We learned to edit podcasts; designed merch; released a print edition; led the creation of a zine for the Young Southeast Asian Leaders’ Initiative in Manila; won a spot in the 2023 Break program for women entrepreneurs; became a media partner of the Oxford Real Farming Conference; survived successive tax seasons; navigated shipping regulations; given a home to vital writing from all over the world, and connected with so many like-minded spirits in our community, leading to the launch of our Feminist Food Friends collective. Outside of FFJ, we’ve changed jobs, moved cities, grown humans, and somehow through it all managed with our little laptops and phones to keep this thing going.
We are nearing almost 5,000 of you here now, and we’re so grateful for the continued appreciation and interest in our work — which, four years onwards, we feel just as committed to as ever. In particular, we’d like to thank our premium subscribers and BFFs of FFJ for funding just about everything that FFJ relies on to keep going.
If you’d like to become a premium subscriber, at $2.5 USD per month, we’re just about the cheapest Valentine’s date you can get. Subscriptions can be purchased for yourself, a lover, or a friend!
To mark the romantic occasion coinciding with our fourth birthday, we’re re-sharing a photo essay from one of our favourite issues, SEX, which was originally published in October 2022 (if you’ve been with us from the beginning, you might remember it as the home of banger illustrations/captions like the ones below).
Meanwhile in Paris by Thomas Jasper conjures what the author refers to “the visceral urges that drive us to lick, bite, and devour…to nourish oneself and to love onself: the most primal form of life.” So sit back, relax, enjoy some photos of sexy French food, and know that we’re tickled pink to have you here with us, four years on.
MEANWHILE IN PARIS
By Thomas Jaspers for our SEX issue
La food doit se comprendre avec ceux qui la font mais aussi ceux qui la consomment. C’est un passage, un témoin de générosité entre un émetteur et un récepteur.
S’alimenter est un acte oral, à l’instar de la parole ou d’un baiser, il s’agit toujours d’un allant vers l’autre. La bouche est essentielle dans toute communion.
Et pourtant manger ne relève pas uniquement du goût, mais s’arroge tous les sens.
Des orgies romaines au foodporn, la nourriture a toujours marqué son rapprochement à l’hédonisme charnel.
C’est ce prisme de la nourriture qui m’est le plus parlant et que je souligne dans mes photos.
Et malgré la fixation du vivant par l’image, malgré cette mort sur surface sensible, c’est la vie derrière.
Les pulsions ventrales qui nous poussent à lécher, mordre et dévorer les chairs qui nous entourent. S’alimenter et s’aimer, la vie la plus primaire.
Thomas Jaspers fait flamber les pellicules et les tappassiettes dans le restaurant Pantobaguette à Paris. Très présent dans l’univers food, ce photographe insuffle un vent de fraicheur à travers ces photos. Il est actuellement directeur artistique de plusieurs restaurants trendy et organisateur du festival La Douve Blanche, un festival qui rassemble haute gastronomie et musique.
I got frenched!!!