[Sca-cooks] Food and Spirituality

[Phlip]

I'm reposting this under a new subject header, because I think Christianna
and Faerisa and I are onto an interesting topic, and I really don't want to
be involved in tempermental digressions.

Christianna wrote:

> Ok, leaving the transubstantiation/cannibalism issue aside for the moment,
> how about the spiritual aspects of sharing the wine and bread?  Going back
> to the Roman and Greek gods and religious observances, eating the grain
and
> drinking the product of the vine is in effect eating the body of the gods
as
> they are manifested in the fruits of the field and vinyard.  Surely that
> figured into the symbology of the Christ's words, they were mostly all
> Romans, after all.
> So what about focusing on the spirituality of the foods themselves?
> Christianna

And I responded:

I think, for them, this was deeply important, even more important than for
those of us today who believe the wine and bread is transformed into God's
flesh and blood. I think bread and wine were far more symbolic to them of
their bond with God, simply because bread and wine were considered the
necessities for a civilized person to eat, at least among the Mediterranean
peoples who were responsible for the development of the early Catholic
Church. I know it's difficult for us to believe, in the days of Wonderbread
and those plastic communion disks ;-) but bread used to make up a very
substantial part of a person's diet- while we may think of a diet of bread
and water as very boring, its usage as a punishment, or occasionally the
sole means of sustenance during a strict fast indicates that bread was
considered a bare necessity to survive.

Wine, OTOH wasn't a necessity, any more than coffee is a necessity for many
moderns, but trying to do without it would leave the abstainer feeling
extremely deprived. There was a mystique to wine, that I feel that we, with
options ranging from canoe beer to everclear (not to mention other
interesting ...substances) have lost- probably because we're so far away
from the land, not least of which is its intoxicating aspect.

Think about it- both substances undergo a rather mysterious transformation,
thanks to yeast. In the case of bread, a mess of soggy flour, resembling
mud, more than anything else, transforms into a tasty and sustaining food,
while the juice of an innocuous fruit, given some time (and more yeasty
beasties) can become a quite different and intoxicating beverage. Doesn't it
make sense that an everyday mystery like this might be matched with a
greater Mystery, one's interaction with Deity, however one perceives
him/her/it/them?

And, for all the descriptions of Humanity, the tool-using animal, the
thinking animal, etc, if nothing else, Humanity is the Metaphorical animal.
A critter, looking at bread and wine sees food- a human sees Deity. Dunno
how you can be more metaphorical, or spiritual than that ;-)

Saint Phlip,

And Faerisa added, responding to my point about the importance of bread to
Medieval people:

Very true!  My mother was very religious old world (and remained VERY
old world after they moved here too!), and whenever she baked bread at
home she would make the sign on the cross on each loaf before putting
them in the oven.  When I asked her why, she said: "Whaddaya mean why!?
Bread is a gift from God!"

Then there was also the annual festival of St Martin for the wine... mmm
... wine ...

Faerisa

Anybody else have some input on the topic? I'd love to hear it.

Saint Phlip,
CoD

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
 Blacksmith's credo.

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....



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