Letter from the Editors


No 3, Spring-Summer 2026

Night Cafe by Louis Marcoussis, 1923. The Cleveland Museum of Art

The concept of ‘the architecture of food’ first emerged during a brainstorming session between chlorophyll’s editors. Apoorva had been inspired by the ephemerality of Irving Penn’s photos of frozen food, with the fragile sturdiness of ice locking the vegetables in place, symbolic of the cold chain that rules our modern food systems. The partnership between chlorophyll and Feminist Food Journal (FFJ) soon emerged organically, as the theme represents a fascinating confluence of both publications’ interests. chlorophyll is an online literary magazine seeking abundance, desire, and community in writing. FFJ is a progressive and thought-provoking magazine and podcast dedicated to a feminist food future. 

While food is often considered a great unifier, it has its divisions. We all have different ways of approaching food, from formal ordered courses to family-style meals, from the nuanced languages and hierarchies of menus to the ways cookbooks and recipes shape our lives, from home kitchens to restaurants and food systems that shape how we eat. The architecture of food is layered, complex, and delicious. In short, this issue was a no-brainer to produce collaboratively, spanning borders, cultures, experiences, and perspectives. 

We have been delighted to work with and publish so many talented writers in this issue. Our first essay was on the importance of the structure of the iconic British meal of meat and two veg during the industrial age and why this has since endured. This working class staple has now become a standard across the UK. How do you decipher a meal, and what does this tell us about the development of a society? From there, we’ve published essays on the incongruence of oysters; on ladies’ menus that embedded historic gender norms around dining and finance; on pastry as an architecture of ritual and resistance; on the limitations and delights of menu translation; on our assumptions around cooking instructions; on ingredients shaping the rhythms and dynamics of a household; on the brave women who carved out a place for themselves in public cafes in the Belle Epoque Habsburg South; on dairy as sin and salvation; and on offal and the architecture of caste in New Delhi, India. 

We’ve also had equally stellar fiction and poetry – a short story on agrarian architecture’s circles of violence with hints of magical realism; poetry on yoghurt cultures, structures, and their resilient networks; a poem on the ritual, sacrifice, and performance of domestic labour; and ones on fractal, eroding homes and food systems. In short, this issue has been a delightful confluence of the material and invisible ways that the world is built. We hope you’ve had as wonderful a time reading the issue as we’ve had producing it. 

Onwards to the next issue on ghosts; poetry and fiction submissions are still open! 

Warmly,
Annie, Apoorva, and Isabela 


Apoorva Sripathi is a writer, editor, poet, and artist from Chennai, now based in London. Her projects include shelf offering, an archive of food, culture, memory, and history and the grounded report, a repository of her writing, art, and everything else. She is the co-founder and editor of CHEESE, the magazine of culture, and her writing has been published in Kinfolk, Vittles, the Wellcome Collection, and Feminist Food Journal. She is also the co-founder of chlorophyll. She is currently relearning HTML and working on building her website.

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 of chlorophyll. Find her at awallentine.com.

Isabela Bonnevera is a writer, editor and PhD candidate from Vancouver, now based in Barcelona. Her doctoral research uses community-engaged methods to explore the intersection of sustainable food transitions and food justice for immigrant communities.




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