Smells and Bells

  Cooking and Community:  Looking at Taste as a Communal Experience By Olivia Modica When I personally think of food and taste I think of the community beyond it. There are so many ways this can apply to life from the communal experience of eating at a restaurant to the community driven experience of eating with family or friends on a holiday. We look to not only what we are eating but who we are choosing to eat with. The experience of food and tasting can be impacted both by what we choose to eat with. For me personally, there are even foods I find I’ll only eat around certain people because they are who are important to me and I tend to associate those foods with them. For example, I associate my college friends with Domino’s because it tends to be something we all pitch in for together when we’re up late.  Communal eating and cooking can be seen in many other cultures, however the one we talked about the most was West African traditions, especially revolving around Ori...

At the risk of sounding hubristic, human beings are imbued with a portion of divine power in the kitchen. We manipulate the elements of fire, air, and water to transform one thing into another. We feel like ancient herbalists when we fine tune the spicing of our dishes, and we usually do it to satisfy ourselves and other humans, not to glorify God. It's impossible to not think of burnt offerings when you're grilling and the flames jump to lick at the delectable meat, and smoke rises up to the heavens (or your fume hood). Cain and Abel offering their sacrifices Gustav Dore, 1866 It could be said that that which is pleasing to the tastes of man is often pleasing to God. In Judaism, he loves oxen, sheep, and goat, and enjoys the covenant which produces "the “soothing odor”  of sacrifice" (Green, 117). In Lucumi  religion, the Oricha, like us, have their  favorite foods, and exceptions. What one Oricha may find pleasing, another might find repugnant. Simila...