The Religion of Food

I love food. 

I also love (the idea of) fasting. 

I love new culinary experiences and tasting new dishes. 

I love reading the Desert Fathers and Mothers who were known for their great feats of asceticism.

I also am trying to appreciate simplicity and "simple fare" as it was once called in addition to the nutritional side of gastronomy (which is to say, how you feel after eating).

Here, I ruminate on our "daily bread" and the religious significance of food by way of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's Physiologie du goût (The Physiology of Taste) along theological texts on the role of food in the Catholic religion, while also giving culinary tips and insights for the kitchens of your domestic churches.

I am also interested in the Benedictine tradition of "table blessings" (or, Benedictiones Mensae) while reflecting on the richer monastic usage that tracks the liturgical year.  For a busy modern Catholic family with many worldly preoccupations, table prayers are an expedient daily practice that one has no excuse to neglect. 

It is also an invitation to live intentionally with respect to one's body, one's own mortality, and one's ongoing dependence upon God. 

To bless one's food also does three things: first, it places man above the works of his hands and the lesser works of God's hands (which is to say vegetable and animal life), and constitutes a devotion to the Living God against idolatry (as well as the lie that is total self-reliance); Secondly, it delays instant gratification and by the smallest token of mortification, it serves as a genuine act of penance towards the divine Gift Bearer; and Third, it brings God squarely in focus routinely and consistently before lukewarm family members for each person regardless of their spiritual progress still meets together at the table out of a shared practical necessity.

That's a lot on my plate, I know!

Be well!