The Theology of Food

The links between religion and food have been known for centuries, and yet we rarely examine or understand the nature of the relationship between food and spirituality, or food and sin. Drawing on literature, politics, and philosophy as well as theology, this book unlocks the role food has played within religious tradition. A fascinating book tracing the centuries-old links between theology and food, showing religion in a new and intriguing light Draws on examples from different religions: the significance of the apple in the Christian Bible and the eating of bread as the body of Christ; the eating and fasting around Ramadan for Muslims; and how the dietary laws of Judaism are designed to create an awareness of living in the time and space of the Torah Explores ideas from the fields of literature, politics, and philosophy, as well as theology Takes seriously the idea that food matters, and that the many aspects of eating – table fellowship, culinary traditions, the aesthetic, ethical and political dimensions of food – are important and complex, and throw light on both religion and our relationship to food

Foreword vi Joaquín Racionero Page Preface ix Acknowledgments x Introduction. Food Talk: Overlapping Matters 1 1 The Making of Mexican Molli and Alimentary Theology in the Making 11 2 Sabor/Saber: Taste and the Eros of Cognition 45 3 Being Nourished: Food Matters 77 4 Sharing in the Body of Christ and the Theopolitics of Superabundance 113 Conclusion. Food Notes: Prolegomenon to a Eucharistic Discourse 157 Index 161