Call for Pitches: Spoiled Rotten

Cake Zine friends,

We’re back with a new pitch call. After delving into meatier territory with our special issue Steak Zine, dropping soon, we’re already looking ahead to our next theme: Spoiled Rotten, exploring extravagance, excess, and decay. Tell us what you think is stale, overripe, and curdled—in the fridge, on the menu, or in our culture. Or extend your gaze from the trash to the compost pile to share how new life can come from rot or how culinary ingenuity can be borne from ingredients past their prime. We’re looking for both what’s lost and what’s gained when things go bad.

Here, spoilage can be literal or metaphorical: food recalls, trends that you find stale, moral decay masked as indulgence. Share a parent’s noble attempts to avoid raising a tyrant at the dinner table, or an unabashedly unreformed picky eater’s takedown of their least favorite ingredients. Provide a new perspective on food culture by analyzing the spoiled diets of the ancient elite, the junk food favorites of the 1% or how reality TV stars use food to signal relatability and elitism. Dig into spectacles of excess like eating contests, celeb-favorite extra-spicy chicken challenges, and dessert-only diets. Take inspiration from the rot that breathes new life into compost heaps and cheese caves, explore the potential blossoming on the fringes of expiration dates.

Unexpected hot takes are prioritized over mainstream ones, and criticism is preferred when punching up. Per usual, we’re open to non-food takes on the theme if they’re smart and interesting enough, but your chances are higher if there’s a food tie-in.

We are also looking for inventive sweet or savory recipes that make the most of stale bread, cake, overripe produce, and other ingredients some would consider past their prime.

Please see this pitch guide for more info on the types of writing we’re looking for, detailed information on rates, and what to include in your submission. Pitches for written and visual content are due at 9 a.m. EST on March 25, but we will gladly accept submissions prior to the deadline. Acceptances will not be issued until all pitches are received and reviewed.

See the pitch guide

Read: Reflections on the rise and fall of glossy food media (and what it meant to work inside the old Condé empire, according to Ruth Reichl) over at Gourmet.

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Apply: The Drift opened applications for its Summer 2026 internship. It’s a great opportunity for early-career writers interested in editing, criticism, and the inner workings of an independent magazine. Apply here.

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Read: Rosa Shipley and Tanya chatted about the relationship between writing and baking for BOMB magazine.