the culinary pleasures of a gay coming of

Thomas’ “Please Like Me” has earned a cult following for its unconventional treatment of homosexuality and mental illness. But part of the allure of the TV series is its depiction of how food affects our deepest relationships.

A ll I can think about is my rubbish face,” opens Josh Thomas’ namesake character in the first episode of “Please Like Me,” while a gorgeously loaded sundae is being prepared for him and his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend’s consumption. “This is as good as my face is ever going to get … It’s all downhill from here,” he continues. It is a bright and sunny day and he is unaware of the impending shift in his world. He goes on carelessly whining about his looks and how he can’t enjoy things but then heaps praises on the sundae as soon as it lands on their table. And just as he pours chocolate syrup on top of the meticulously put together dessert, his girlfriend announces a breakup — and points out that Josh might be gay. “This $19 sundae suddenly seems pretty f*cking humiliating,” he says.

Food is an important element in “Please Like Me,” an Australian TV comedy-drama series that has been lauded for its honest and accurate portrayal of the growing pains of being a homosexual and dealing with mental illness. There’s always something being cooked, since Josh is rather an excellent one and actually ends up running a small coffee and candy cart of his own a few seasons into the show. There are no explicit odes to the glory of food, no documentation of painstaking processes — although there was an episode where Josh agonizes about an overcooked ham and another one that involves a rather drawn out process of killing and then cooking a chicken — only how food can foster the best and worst of our relationships.

There’s almost always a scene with a character eating. Episodes are all named after food (or something ingestible like “Amoxicillin” in a season three episode, which focused on how titular pill can be smuggled into the food of Ella, the girlfriend of Tom, Josh’s best friend and flatmate, after he discovered he has chlamydia — again. Some episodes are also set around dinner tables, like “Christmas Trifle,” which devoted the running time around the Christmas dinner of Josh, his friends, and his family; and “Degustation” which saw Josh and his parents discuss the peaks and troughs of their family life and relationships, while eating an expensive 15-course dinner.

There’s a bit of a conniving quality to food when its set in an inescapable environment, just like in a dinner table where you have to sit through the entirety of the meal, unless you plan on walking out like a drama queen. Josh, who had to take care of his bipolar mom after a suicide attempt, excels best when he’s manning the kitchen. Though we never see extended shots of him cooking like a pro (although the opening credits, set to the infectious bop “I’ll Be Fine” by Claire Browne and the Bangin’ Rackettes is usually a cooking montage, as seen in the screenshots on the left of this spread), we see his delight in serving food for his loved ones, be it his dysfunctional family or his bumbling group of friends. It’s his way of expressing his affection for them, because he’s not really good at being honest about his feelings — something he maneuvers and evades using his sharp with and wry observations.

Tarts are baked, croquembouches are destroyed, and truffled mac and cheeses symbolize lost loves. “Please Like Me” posits that food, when life is nothing but generally terrible, can be our only source of pleasure. When awkward transitions into adulthood collide with our own personal crises — the needlessness of coming out, failing to meet a lover’s expectation, or just general disappointment with one’s physicality (Josh always struggles with his looks, a great source of both comedy and pathos in the series) — food is the only thing that doesn’t fail to ease our burden and its best consumed with people who are generally just as miserable as we are.