On the Cover: Happy Plate
Photo by Rush Jagoe
Nothing says summer in the Gulf South quite like leaning back from the picnic table, belly full of fresh-caught fish, face tilted up towards the sweltering sun—bonus points if you can see a body of water from your seat. When we came across this capture by New Orleans photographer Rush Jagoe, we found it familiar, nostalgic even. We’ve been here before.
And perhaps it was our story-searching tendencies, but we saw other things in this image, too: locality in the freshness, seasonality in the colors, intentionality in the plating—holding forth even in decimation. We saw the joy of food sourced with care, prepared with love, and eaten with relish.
We hope you feel these sentiments radiating from the stories within this year’s Cuisine Issue as well, as we celebrate local restaurants and purveyors radically rethinking our food systems, shortening the distance from farm, or sea, to plate. At the same time, we remember the impact those far away places have had on our food culture, traveling to West Africa to experience gumbo’s predecessor first-hand and sharing memories of the Hitachi rice cookers that relinquished an inch on our Cajun and Creole grandmothers’ roles in the kitchen. And finally, we re-examine food as a mechanism of art—reaching even beyond its beauty and taste for something more powerful: message.