Photo by Caitlin Abrams
Meal Magazine
You know who feels irked by food writers? Other food writers. So, when word gets out that a fellow hungry wordsmith in your town plans to launch their own foodie zine, it’s not unusual to get itchy and prepare for battle—or, at the very least, for a food fight.
And that’s precisely what I thought was going to happen when I first caught wind that a couple of local food writers were readying to send something called Meal Magazine to the printer.
“Really?” I scoffed, as I ordered their inaugural issue.
But a funny thing happened a few weeks later when it arrived: I liked it. I decided I should dig in and get to the bottom of it.
“After Heavy Table folded, Josh Page and I were kind of wondering how we could stay in the food space,” explains Meal cofounder Peter Sieve, of the local food website that shuttered in 2018 and inspired him to create his own thing.
Sieve and I are having drinks at Meteor Bar in north Minneapolis. The lean, denim-wearing Sieve is hankering for a negroni. But he allows himself to be swayed into ordering a very tart and bracing grapefruit drink, which he lets me taste. When he’s not maxing out credit cards to start his own food journal, Sieve is a musician who makes extra change operating some Airbnbs. His Meal coconspirator, Joshua Page, is a college professor.
Sieve tells me Meal started on Instagram as a vehicle for food reviews, but it never quite felt right.
“We really missed the stories and the writing of Lucky Peach, and we realized we wanted to do something in print,” he says.
Photo by Caitlin Abrams
Meal Magazine spread
When Peter Meehan, Chris Ying, and David Chang launched Meal’s de facto inspiration, Lucky Peach, in 2011, they embraced the tactile beauty of paper and championed the long-form, book-like stories that rarely see play in the food journalism space. Across the country, others followed suit. Modern Farmer, Swallow Magazine, and Meatpaper were all innovative efforts that eventually fizzled. But Cherry Bombe, which celebrates women in food, first hit the scene in 2013 and has since grown. In addition to producing the print magazine, The Cherry Bombe collective hosts national events, draws top names for its podcast, and has published a cookbook.
Sieve sees Meal, like its forerunners, as a national player. The magazine won’t focus on just Twin Cities food stories. The inaugural issue, which dropped in January, boasts everything from a bilingual look at the dining diaspora of Lima, Peru, to a meditation on how civil war led to the rise of the El Salvadoran pupuseria, to lengthy chats with the three women chefs who have been local James Beard Award nominees. There’s also a conversation with the San Francisco Chronicle’s new restaurant reviewer, Soleil Ho, who is making waves by dismantling the old rules of restaurant criticism in the Bay Area: doing away with stars, panning Chez Panisse, and including restaurants that wouldn’t have seen a Chronicle reviewer before. Before moving west, Ho lived in Minneapolis and hung with Sieve and company, brainstorming what would become, you guessed it, Meal.
Stories in the first issue look at social justice and reshaping the cultural food dialogue. There’s a long personal look at how comfort food—and a radical act of hospitality—affects detained immigrants. There’s also a deep dive into the crossroads of civil rights and the simple grilled cheese sandwich.
“We’re interested in telling stories that don’t make it into other areas, giving them the space to breathe,” Sieve says, as he takes his hat off and we order a second round. “And seeing what Soleil is doing in California is really cool. But we’re still working on how this will all come together.”
At the start, Sieve says, he’ll print Meal biannually, with roughly 1,000 copies for each run. The first issue is 128 pages of heavy matte paper and showcases a dark, mod-’70s vibe. That’s thanks largely to both the overall design and the highly stylized images of Meal’s primary photographer, Bill Phelps, who has also shot for Vogue and The New York Times.
When I mention to Sieve, 40, that the type might be a wee bit small for our demographic (the darkly colored backgrounds don’t help), he just laughs and chalks it up to rookie mistakes.
“Yeah, we’re still learning how to magazine,” he explains. “Some of the stuff looked great on the screen, but on paper didn’t work as well.”
As for whether the second issue has a release date, well—
“Not quite,” Sieve chuckles as we put on our coats on to leave. “It’s kind of amazing that this first issue exists at all.”
Since this story was originally published, Meal Magazine began publishing its stories on its website, where you can also order a print copy.
