Taste

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Taste is one of my favorite of the senses just because I feel as though it is something that can make us feel at one with each other. It is one of the senses in which we are able to bond while making a dish, or sitting down eating enjoying not only the food but the company with the people who you are with. Elizabeth Perez wrote a book, Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions, where she talks about and touches upon the importance of religious cooking. She also talks about the importance of what religions do in order to prepare certain foods or certain foods/ drinks for ceremonies.





Growing up in a Catholic setting we used to bless the body of Christ and the blood of Christ before we would be able to accept it. You would bring these items down the aisle and then the priest would have us join in prayer to bless the items. We use communion in the church to be able to have and feel the presence of God. We talked about this in class where some religions would give offerings and not eat certain foods in order to be one with god. For us, we become one with God every Sunday when we eat the body of Christ and drink the blood of Christ. This used to be very important to me, mostly when I was younger and just had my first communion, where I was surrounded by my family in the pews. However, as I got older and my grandmother’s immune system was not as well, I found that the time in which I felt one with God again was during family gatherings on the holidays, where we all sit around a table and say prayer eating the same types of food. Food in my family is the common ground and the time in which we are able to talk to one another about each other’s days during dinner.

Comments

  1. Jonathan Brumberg-KrausMay 11, 2020 at 7:54 AM

    I think there are always at least two sides to Communion - 1) the communion with the Body of Christ, with God as you internalize Him (become "one with God") by eating and drinking, and 2) the communion with the other members of the community sharing in the same "meal." Clearly that second sense has carried over to your family meals with your grandmother. But I love how in Paul's letters in the NT, especially in 1 Corinthians, "the body of Christ" comes to refer metaphorically also to the community of Christians. So both senses of Communion are implied in the term "body of Christ." There is a saying in Jewish tradition that wherever three or more are gathered to eat and say words of Scripture, God is present. And in a Christian version of this saying from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says "Wherever two or three gather in my name, there I am with them." What's so cool is that your own sensory experiences confirm this theological idea.

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