Vittles Issue 2 (Winter 2025): Bad Food

$35 · Offered by Kitchen Arts & Letters

Vittles is a London-based magazine of food and culture that began as an online newsletter during the pandemic and has since grown into a substantial print project. From the start, it has been more interested in scrutiny than reverence. It uses food as a way to examine power, class, taste, commerce, and the stories people tell about what and how they eat. Issue 2, Winter 2025, serves as a clear reintroduction to that project. Organized around the deliberately elastic idea of “bad food,” it looks at foods that are nutritionally suspect, socially embarrassing, aesthetically dubious, or simply unloved. The magazine’s perspective is distinctly British and often very London-specific, taking local references and shared knowledge for granted, and inviting readers elsewhere into that world rather than translating it. That point of view is part of the pleasure. As widely as the magazine ranges geographically and culturally, its grounding produces a steady sense of discovery of unfamiliar assumptions, different food economies, and definitions of “badness” that do not align neatly with American food writing. Throughout, the writing is sharp, confident, and intellectually curious, with contributions that slip between reporting, criticism, personal essay, and fiction. Selected pieces include: Joe Zadeh on “fried rice syndrome” and the persistent fear of reheated rice Tania Sanchez on soft drinks and the sweeteners that define them Sharanya Deepak on Italian food in India and Pakistan, from

• Binding: Hardcover

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