jun•ta (hu’n-ta)

Etymology: from the Spanish, juntar, “to join”

1.  a community of revolutionaries
2.  a military dictatorship

We started Food Junta in February 2008, fresh from college and living in New York’s East Village with minimal pay, minuscule counter space, and a modicum of free time. What we did have was plenty of interest in food and in sharing our cooking with each other and with our friends.

We want this blog to be a conversation, not just about food in the strictest sense, but about all the things that go along with that food: the song you listened to while you cooked, the book that inspired your dish, the trip that introduced you to a new ingredient.

We care about where our food comes from and what went into it, but we know that food politics — like real politics — is complicated, and we don’t lay claim to special expertise or authority. Nor do we allege to be experts about food. We are still learning, and Food Junta is meant to be a shared learning process.

When we use the word junta, we mean it in its original sense – a community of revolutionaries — and certainly not as a military dictatorship. In Spanish,  juntar means to join, and that is just what we are trying to do: to join together our friends, our readers, our interests, and our writing in a shared conversation about the food we eat. We hope you’ll be a part of it.

Contact us at foodjunta@gmail.com