Food is largely presented as scarcity, lack, loss – Africa’s always desperate exceptionalism or exceptional desperation or whatever. In this issue, we put food back on the table: to restore the interdependence between the mouth that eats and the mouth that speaks, and to delve deeper into the subtle tactics of resistance and private practices that make food both a subversive art and a site of pleasure.

The aim, of course, is not to dismiss the questions raised by food insecurity, but rather to complicate them, to cook and serve them differently. Necessarily, it must be done with close attention to the mouth – to the feelings of words and sounds on the tongue, and to the fingers, too. Taste, not hunger for the word alone, compels the eating.

With contributions from Yemisi Aribisala, Moses März, Rustum Kozain, Desiree Lewis, Harmony Holiday, Stacy Hardy, Zayaan Khan, Adji Dieye, Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire, Fungai Machirori, Shoks Mzolo, Isaac Otidi Amuke, Bongani Kona, Kwanele Sosibo, Thabo Jijana, Paula Akugizibwe, Akin Adesokan, Harry Garuba, Billy Kahora, Barbara Wanjala, Kodwo Eshun, Saki Mafundikwa, Oris Aigbokhaevbolo, and many more.