Letter from the Editors


The Kemanglen sugar factory near Tegal in Java, oil on canvas by Abraham Salm. Sugar was refined in factories like this one and was intended for the European market. And while the profit went to the Dutch treasury, the Javanese were made to work harder for less money. 


Like most precious things in this world, this magazine is a labour of love. It is the product of a year and a half’s worth of emails, video calls, endless text messages, brainstorms, edit meets, and general discussions about the state of the world, with the theme of chlorophyll swirling throughout. And like most (cautious) parents, we’re excited to share our baby with you all. It’s been a privilege – and, honestly, so much fun – to work on this magazine and begin fostering a community of writers who are passionate about their craft and sharing meaningful work.

While coming up with themes for the inaugural issue, we were clear on one thing – that it must revolve around food. It was a natural choice following the name of our magazine, because after all, chlorophyll, the green pigment, helps plants absorb the light required for photosynthesis to produce energy and food. Besides, we also see it as a litmus test to gauge the seriousness of our publication – silly or significant, food lies at the centre of all human activities and has been, is, and will be a source of constant enquiry.

We picked sugar and spice for our first theme because there are worlds of beauty and pain in them: everything from colonial violence and exploitation to idiosyncratic discovery and delight. As Sidney Mintz wrote in Sweetness and Power, the manufacture of sugar from the early modern era involved “masses of people and resources, thrown into productive combination by social, economic, and political forces that were actively remaking the entire world”. The role of sugar in fueling the bodies of Europe and America was only made possible through the capitalist processes of the plantation industry that enslaved individuals and reduced them to commodities. From this dark history have come the masses of industrial sweets and refined sugar that we take for granted as being readily accessible on shop shelves and in kitchen cupboards. The specific theme and title for issue 1 – ‘Sugar, spice, and everything (not so) nice’ – was inspired by the enduring English nursery rhyme ‘What are little boys made of’. The poem seems to present sugar, spices, and women as commodities to be desired, underscoring their places in the world. Discussing what we are and want to be made of – the systems we take part in and roles we can remake anew – seemed like a perfect task for this first issue. 

Writers relate to life through language; we find connection through our words and others’. It’s been exciting to see the range of well-considered topics in our submissions, and even more exciting to share our favourites with you in our first issue, from essays exploring the heat of peppers and the flavours of memory to poems about the complexities of sugar consumption. But we also wanted to use this opportunity to point you towards a few other sugar or spice themed works, in various mediums, to complement what you’ll read in this issue. (No explication, because that would be adding our words to the story they tell!)

What sugar and spice mean, ultimately, is up to you. And sweet, spicy, or bitter, we hope to keep publishing and sharing stories, poetry, essays, and memoirs for years to come.

Warmly,
Apoorva & Annie

If you want to dive more into these ideas, we recommend you check out:




Apoorva Sripathi is a writer, editor, poet, and artist from Chennai, now based in London. She writes shelf offering, a newsletter weaving together food, art, memory, history, and politics. She is the co-founder and editor of CHEESE, the magazine of culture, and her writing has been published in Kinfolk, Vittles, Wellcome Collection, and Feminist Food Journal. She is also the co-founder and co-editor of chlorophyll. More of her stuff here.

Anne Wallentine is a writer, editor, and historian who focuses on intersections of arts, culture, and health. Her journalism has appeared in The Financial Times, The Economist, Smithsonian Magazine, The Art Newspaper, Slate, and Hyperallergic. She has also curated exhibitions on topics from LGBTQ+ history to the history of trees in Los Angeles. Having lived in various cities across the US and the UK, she is now based in LA. She is the co-founder and co-editor of chlorophyll. Find her at awallentine.com.


    

(c) 2025, chlorophyll