SOAS Food Studies Centre and Vittles essay competition 2026
To help bridge the gap between academic and popular writing on food, the SOAS Food Studies Centre and Vittles magazine are partnering to run an essay competition in 2026 exclusively for alumni of the Centre’s MA Anthropology of Food.
Too often, academic research into the social, political, economic and cultural dimensions of food remains within the academy and does not reach a wider audience. At the same time, popular food publications are increasingly addressing these topics, indicating that readers want more than recipes and restaurant reviews. This competition helps bring academic food studies into popular food writing.
Vittles is an online and print food and culture magazine based in the UK and India. The author of the winning essay will receive editorial feedback and mentorship from a Vittles editor to get their piece ready for publication, and on publication will be paid Vittles’ regular author fee, approximately £800.
Essay criteria
We welcome essays on a broad range of food-related topics, whether concerning production, exchange, preparation or consumption. Essays must have a contemporary hook or perspective and must be based on work done for the SOAS MA Anthropology of Food programme. Geographically they may concern any part of the world.
The Vittles editors advise:
“We publish writing that offers new insights into food production, cooking, eating and domestic lives. For this competition we’re looking for essays that understand that food is inherently political, and that use food as a lens through which to examine questions of class, race, gender, migration, labour and social change, among other contemporary issues. We do not publish purely historical accounts. Essays should not simply introduce a subject or phenomenon but rather should aim to provide insight and analysis into them, offering surprising or unexpected ways into the topic.”
Dr. Elizabeth Hull, chair of the SOAS Food Studies Centre, advises:
“We are an interdisciplinary centre dedicated to the study of the political, economic and cultural dimensions of food, from production and exchange to preparation and consumption. Our MA students are trained to take a critical anthropological approach to these aspects of food. For this competition we’re looking for pieces based on work done for the Master’s course, for example re-worked essays and dissertations. The writing should reflect the Centre’s values of critical enquiry and academic rigour and can be based on library research and/or fieldwork done for the MA, however long ago.”
There will be a food writing session at the Food Studies Centre Alumni Network Reunion on Saturday 11th April at SOAS. The session will include the launch of this competition, a Q&A with Vittles editors, and tips from successful food writers and journalists, including Ruby Tandoh (author of Eat Up! and All Consuming), Irina Janakievska (author of The Balkan Kitchen) and Nina Pullman (founder of Wicked Leeks and BBC Radio 4 producer-presenter).
Key information
Eligibility: Author must have completed the SOAS MA Anthropology of Food
Essay length: 1500-2000 words
Deadline
30th November 2026
Contact
For further details including how to enter, email Anna Colquhoun: ac189@soas.ac.uk
Image credit: Retha Ferguson
