The Spirituality of Food

On Sunday Bruce and I went to the First Brooklyn UU's and the topic was "The Spirituality of Food." There was a lovely ritual with bread and olive oil. People brought trays with delicious gourmet breads and bowls of olive oil to us, and instructed us to hold the tray for the next person until he or she broke off some bread and dipped it in the olive oil. So we were all serving each other. That can be a spiritual experience in itself. It reminded me of the "Kin of Ata" book where people did not feed themselves but instead went around at mealtimes serving each other, and there always was enough food.

As we ate the bread and olive oil, the people leading the service read aloud some quotes about olive oil and olives, and their significance in history and in Biblical times. Olive oil is very healthy, but olives had a great deal of symbolic significance as well. I felt as if this was an alternate communion, instead of bread and wine, we ate bread and olive oil that tasted like liquid sunshine.

Two people came up and gave short speeches on the spirituality of food in their lives. Both mentioned foods that had become "sacred" in their families because they were associated with certain holidays or family rituals. One woman spoke about her many anxieties about food because she has a restricted diet and always has to think about what she will be able to eat when away from home, or what to make for dinner when she is. I could certainly relate to that because I have so many restrictions on my diet that sometimes I feel as if I have more foods I am not allowed to eat than foods I am permitted. It can be disheartening especially when going out with friends and I can't sample something new and exotic.

But she went to China and had a wonderful time eating out in excellent restaurants where she was able to get foods she was allowed. By contrast, she told me afterwards that street vendors in China sell dumplings that are 60% cardboard. That's pretty repulsive!

There was also a guided meditation with fruit. This time baskets of fruit were passed around and we were encouraged to pick out a fruit (mostly apricots and cherries) and really sit with it and contemplate it through out senses. We looked it over, felt the skin, felt the stem if there was one, punctured the outer skin and smelled the juicy flesh inside, and finally ate the fruit, with far more mindfulness than I ever devote to eating.

After the service ended I spoke with a man from British Columbia who was visiting New York on business for a week. He is a UU member back home so he was pleased to find a UU church in Brooklyn and decided to attend. He said that he had lived in Fiji for a while and that the diet there is very exotic. But he also pointed out that people from other cultures are just as horrified by some of the things we eat as we are by their diets. He described someone from another culture's disgust at the "huge, ugly insect" that was served in a restaurant in America. Well, of course, it was a lobster! But if they were to serve crickets and grasshoppers here, most people would run out of the restaurant screaming. I sure would.

And yet, in many parts of the world, insect protein is part of the diet. It's certainly plentiful but I'm not about to rustle up a cockroach stew, no thanks!

Another item he mentioned was corn. Someone he met was upset at being served corn on the cob at and American barbecue, because where he came from, corn on the cob is strictly animal feed and humans don't eat it.

Now that's pretty amazing but even something we would view as completely innocuous could seem insulting in a different context (as if we went to someone's home and received a plateful of canned dog food for dinner). It certainly was an eye opener.

When I think of the spirituality of food I think of people eating together (breaking bread). It's supposed to be bonding. I also think of ritual foods that have symbolic meanings, like matzoh at Passover and the wine and wafers of a Catholic communion. We like to say that Jews eat our religion, particularly during the two Seders of the year (Passover and Tu B'Shevat, the new year of the trees), but other peoples do this as well.

Foods that are eaten only on special occasions or just very rarely become "sacred" and take on a symbolic meaning. Food can mean love, and people use it to reassure themselves that they are loved, which can become a dangerous obsession. There is a great deal of spiritual meaning to the very mundane and universal need for food, and the way in which individuals and cultures meet that need.