Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis excellent collection of essays shows the remarkable variety of ways in which food and meals have served to create and express identity for Christians. From the Middle Ages to the present, and from the Reformation to Orthodoxy to evangelicalism, contributors explore the diversity and the ubiquity of food's connection to faith. -- The Revd Canon Andrew McGowan, Trinity College, The University of Melbourne Ken Albala and Trudy Eden serve a delightful potpourri of thought-provoking and insightful essays. Widely separated in time and space, they are held together by common themes, such as bodily health, fasting, and commensality, and are peopled by a wild array of monks, noblemen, adventurers, bishops, vegetarians, medical professionals, Maoris, and missionaries, to name just a few. This much needed collection deserves to be widely read by anyone interested in food, history, and religion. Well-done! -- Andrew F. Smith Eating History: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine Altogether, the essays are topical, well written, and stimulating. They nicely capture the diversity, nuance, and complexity surrounding the place and role of dietary practices in Christian culture. -- Raymond A. Mentzer Catholic Historical Review
Table of ContentsIntroduction, by Trudy Eden Historical Background to Food and Christianity, by Ken Albala 1. The Urban Influence: Shopping and Consumption at the Florentine Monastery of Santa Trinita in the Mid-Fourteenth Century, by Salvatore Musumeci 2. The Ideology of Fasting in the Reformation Era, by Ken Albala 3."The Food Police:" Sumptuary Prohibitions on Food in the Reformation, by Johanna B. Moyer 4. Dirty Things: Bread, Maize, Women, and Christian Identity in Sixteenth-Century America, by Heather Martel 5. Enlightened Fasting: Religious Conviction, Scientific Inquiry, and Medical Knowledge in Early Modern France, by Sydney Watts 6. The Sanctity of Bread: Missionaries and the Promotion of Wheat Growing Among the New Zealand Maori, by Hazel Petrie 7. Commensality and Love Feast: The Agape Meal in the Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Brethren in Christ Church, by Heidi Oberholtzer Lee 8. Metaphysics and Meatless Meals: Why Food Mattered When the Mind Was Everything, by Trudy Eden 9. Fasting and Food Habits in the Eastern Orthodox Church, by Antonia-Leda Matalas, Eleni Tourlouki, and Chrystalleni Lazarou 10. Divine Dieting: A Cultural Analysis of Christian Weight Loss Programs, by Samantha Kwan and Christine Sheikh 11. Eating in Silence in an English Benedictine Monastery, by Richard Irvine Bibliography Index
