STrained
“Strained” is a new column by Island and Spice Magazine featuring personal essays by Caribbean Americans about their food legacies that have been interrupted and how one dish or culinary event played a role in shaping their identity. The column cleverly tackles uncomfortable topics in a way that is vulnerable, relatable and thought-provoking.
Are you interested in submitting an essay? We’d love to hear from you. Here’s what you need to know first.
How to pitch your essay?
Send a brief pitch (a paragraph or two) to editor@islandandspice.com.
Be sure to include the dish you want to write about and why the dish is important to you.
Please include where you live and your nationality.
The editor will respond to some pitches by requesting a follow up call. During the call you should be ready to flesh out your idea.
If the pitch gets approved, you will be sent a freelance agreement, assignment, pay rate and deadline.
You will need to make yourself available during the editing process, which will happen over email, over the phone and sometimes via Zoom.
What are interruptions?
Interruptions include a range of life changes like migration, political unrest, death in the family, having grown up in a neighborhood where the cultural foods are not readily available, having moved away from home, lost a family cookbook or because the significance that the food held was simply taken for granted. Sometimes interruptions are subtle. Maybe life got busy and you just stopped cooking all together.
What if the pitch is about reclaiming food traditions?
This also works. In order to reclaim your food there had to have been an interruption of some sort.