Eden - Food and Faith in Christian Culture

ARTS AND TRADITIONS OF THE TABLE

Perspectives on Culinary History

ARTS AND TRADITIONS OF THE TABLE:
Perspectives on Culinary History

ALAN SONNENFELD, SERIES EDITOR

Salt: Grain of Life, Pierre Laszlo, translated by Mary Beth Mader

Culture of the Fork, Giovanni Rebora,
translated by Albert Sonnenfeld

French Gastronomy: The History and Geography of a Passion,
Jean-Robert Pitte, translated by Jody Gladding

Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food, Silvano Serventi
and Franoise Sabban, translated by Antony Shugar

Slow Food: The Case for Taste, Carlo Petrini, translated by William McCuaig

Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History, Alberto Capatti and Massimo
Montanari, translated by ine OHealy

British Food: An Extraordinary Thousand Years of History, Colin Spencer

A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America,
James E. McWilliams

Sacred Cow, Mad Cow: A History of Food Fears,
Madeleine Ferrires, translated by Jody Gladding

Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor,
Herv This, translated by M.B. DeBevoise

Food Is Culture, Massimo Montanari,
translated by Albert Sonnenfeld

Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking,
Herv This, translated by Jody Gladding

Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America,
Frederick Douglass Opie

Gastropolis: Food and New York City, edited by Annie Hauck-Lawson and Jonathan
Deutsch

Building a Meal: From Molecular Gastronomy to Culinary
Constructivism, Herv This, translated by M.B. DeBevoise

Eating History: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine, Andrew F. Smith

The Science of the Oven, Herv This, translated by Jody Gladding

Pomodoro! A History of the Tomato in Italy, David Gentilcore

Cheese, Pears, and History in a Proverb,
Massimo Montanari, translated by Beth Archer Brombert

EDITED BY

Ken Albala & Trudy Eden

Columbia University Press New York

Columbia University Press
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Copyright 2011 Columbia University Press
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E-ISBN: 978-0-231-52079-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Food and faith in Christian culture / edited by Ken Albala and Trudy Eden.

p. cm. (Arts and traditions of the table)

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 978-0-231-14996-9 (cloth: alk. paper)ISBN 978-0-231-14997-6 (pbk.: alk. paper)ISBN 978-0-231-52079-9 (e-book)

1. FoodReligious aspectsChristianityHistory. 2. Food habitsHistory. 3. Dinners and diningReligious aspectsChristianityHistory. I. Albala, Ken, 1964II. Eden, Trudy.

BR115.N87F655 2011

248.4dc23

2011020718

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Trudy Eden

For many people, the phrase the lords supper may bring forth an image of the Last Supper (such as fifteenth-century mural by Leonardo da Vinci), with Jesus sitting at the center of a dining table and his twelve disciples seated on either side of him. The men are about to share a meal. This images evokes the powerful story of the last hours of Christs life, depicting the first Eucharist and contrasting the commensal solidarity of those seated at the table with the impending betrayal by one among the group, Judas Isacariot. Betrayal and the love and forgiveness with which Jesus responded to it are, of course, at the center of Christianity. So, too, is the Eucharist. As such, they have been the subject of much study by a wide variety of people, not the least of whom are scholars of numerous academic disciplines.

Another aspect of this image, that of the table laid for a meal, has received little scholarly attention. Yet food and the act of eating, particularly group eating, are potent forces in human culture. No one in any culture sits at a table to share a meal without a complex set of understandings that influence their behavior at the table as well as away from it. It is these understandings and behaviors in the context of Christian culture that this volume seeks. With its focus firmly on the meal, its antecedents, and its consequences, this collection asks the central question: Have Christians used food and its associative practices to shape, strengthen, and/or spread their faith? The answer is a resounding yes. The following essays show that Christians have done so in an astonishing variety of ways from the fourteenth century to the present and around the world. These practices, while retaining a definite Christian character, exhibit a great deal of flexibility. Their rich diversity distinguishes Christian food customs from the more codified traditions of other major religions such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism. Food has been, and still is, useful to and powerful for Christians.

This wide array of people, places, and foods in time is woven together by four underlying themes: commensality, fasting, the sacrament, and bodily health. Although modestly defined as the habit of eating together, commensality entails much more. When a group of people sit together and eat the same food, they create or strengthen physical and social bonds. The type and strength of the bonds varies depending on the circumstances of the meal. Physical bonds arise when people eat the same food, which their bodies metabolize and turn into flesh. They become, if only in part and only temporarily, made one and the same. In earlier times and places, this distinction was important, as it underlay human identity.

Social bonds develop for different reasons. In the premodern and early modern periods in England, for example, people often didnt just eat together. Depending on the size and nature of the group, eaters were often arranged together to eat. The root word commensal means eating at or pertaining to the same table. Soldiers, for example, ate with men of the same rank. Nonmilitary diners at banquets sat at tables with people of the same social rank. In both cases the different tables received different kinds and amounts of foods. Commensality, then, ordered as well as bound social groups. Everyone who attended a meal bonded with the larger group but were divided and joined to their smaller group (called the mess) at the same time by the acts of eating the same food and of socializing during the meal.

Commensal has a third definition, as a noun, that developed in the nineteenth century but most certainly has roots in human dining customs. A commensal is an animal or plant which is attached to another and shares its food but is not a parasite. When applied to human activity, this definition suggests the strongest and healthiest of communities, for it is one thing to take from a group and quite another to share with it.