Smells and Bells

Today wasn't my first time "doing" miracle berries. While abroad last year, studying food security, we spent a class discussing sugar, obesity and the relationship between the two. As part of the class we had miracle berries and tried apples, lemons and limes, just like today. We were talking about how the miracle berry and its chemical components could be used in food and how that would be beneficial. By incorporating the berry into other foods that we eat, we could make them taste sweeter, and more enjoyable, without actually adding sugar or other sweeteners which can be harmful to our health. The way we used the miracle berry then was in a social/health context, so I tried thinking about how that could overlap with our religious context that we discussed today. We discussed how by using the miracle berry we were changing the food to taste differently and better (sweeter). That relates to how we understand God as being good. It then becomes a question of "is Go...

Sweets are known to be one of the most indulgent flavors humans long for. We make sure to save room in our stomachs during a meal so we can treat ourselves with having our last bite of food being dessert. An important mantra my grandmother used to share is, “Eat dessert first, life is short,” suggesting that we deserve sweets before the nutrition of our actual meal. We call it one of our comfort food and it seems to cure any wrongdoing, like how ice cream and chocolate can fix emotional turmoil. We eat sweets when we’re feeling distraught, lost, and empty and use them to fill ourselves. Sugar can be known to heal burns on your tongue after taking a sip of a hot beverage. And we especially know that sugar can mask bitter, unpleasant tastes, and so we use it to help “the medicine go down.” By this logic, sugar is good for us as it can help us get physically and mentally better.   We also use the word sweet to describe things that aren't food, like people and feelings. W...

http://m5.paperblog.com/i/71/714671/interesting-psak-no-candy-man-no-throwing-can-L-4eXirb.jpeg Growing up Jewish, I remember my seventh grade year as being scattered with the Bar and Bat Mitzvahs of many of my classmates, both from Hebrew School and from my regular school class. I'm sure many others also remember getting dressed up on Saturday morning, going to synagogue, listening to a friend chant in Hebrew for a couple hours, and then later that day going to a big party at a local country club or somewhere. One of the many traditions that take place throughout the day is the throwing of the candy. This takes place after the Bar/Bat Mitzvah has just finished reading their Torah and Havtorah sections. The audience takes out the individually wrapped circular gummy candies and (hopefully) gently lobs them over the crowd and at the 13 year old at the front. Once the bombardment ends, the younger children dash to the front and collect as much candy as they can to quietly munc...

Honeycomb s "Taste and see that the Lord is sweet"  Depending on the translation, God's sweetness flows from him like honey, an oozing sweetness that could mean bliss or joy, but could also be literally translated to sweetness. With the satiability of God's words and presence being connected to only sweetness, while things that may bring harm to us are considered bitter. What's interesting to me is the delectability of God despite his power and wrath. Where is the sweetness when he induces the flood? Would we every consider God any other flavors or tastes? To connect this back to what the author said about taste being a matter of perspective. Rachel Fulton also noted how sweetness can be seen as juvenile, with the connotations as follows could be perceiving the person tasting as immature.  Further elaborating on this idea that Bernard of Clarivaux introduced of our palate being tainted by the serpent's poison, providing a loss of tastes of goodne...