Smells and Bells

           In my grandma's kitchen, back home in Baton Rouge, I listen to the sounds of cooking. Despite the rich flavor palate of southern Louisiana, it's not often that I get to be a part of the cooking. Still, I participate in other ways: watching my little cousins in the backyard, giving the dogs attention with free hands, gossiping about the latest family drama with my younger cousin (who is much more involved with that business), making hot chocolate during the winter season.         We all gather together, even those that have since left Louisiana for slightly more distant pastures. These rituals of connection keep us tied together, a family by blood and by choice. A lot of people don't realize the religiosity of sitting down together and enjoying a meal, making a meal, but simple mindfulness can lead to a greater understanding of how eating might be a practice close to God(s) (whatever God looks like to you).    ...

     My uncles like to say that to be a Chaffiotte means that cooking is in the blood. They trace it back to our ancestor Antoine who, in 1911, immigrated from France to work as a butcher in New York City. He spent the first few years alone in this new country, working in hotels and butcher shops to save up so his wife, Elise, and young sons could cross over and join him. In his diary, he wrote that the time apart was an impossibly lonely experience, made only worse by the vast differences in language and culture.      Food meant something very different in the United States than it did back home in Autun. Americans valued quantity over quality. Comfort over the joy of experimentation. Recipes were strictly followed to avoid the risk of not presenting the promised experience. It seemed that only the bourgeois class could enjoy “fine dining” and have the opportunity to savor the true value of a meal.            So, like a...

 While the vast majority of the most intricate rituals described by Perez in the text were the cooking done for the Orisha, a variety of things were practiced by the Lucumi that she spent time with also practiced a form of ancestor worship as part of their religion, which involved offering a part of the food that they cooked to each of the ancestors present, a process with it's own unique and intricate ritual practices and taboos. While this is a very formal way of food being used to connect with the deceased, it's definitely not the only example of it that springs to mind when I think on the concept.  Personally, the first thing that I think of when it comes to food and to the dead, together, is a friend of the families who passed away when I was in high school. She wasn't someone I was particularly close to, the mother of my mom's best friend who I saw maybe once or twice a year when she came to Massachusetts to visit her daughter and Grandchildren. She was close enou...

I do not follow a particular religion as I have never been raised to do so, and after our conversations regarding the ways in which religion is sometimes placed upon people forcefully or simply unwantedly, I began to think about how my parents sort of intended there to be an absence of religion.  We have our beliefs surely, but I never attended church or Sunday school or religious youth groups which I’ve heard many people share their not so fond memories of but still somehow felt like I was missing out. Religion quite literally rules the world in lots of ways, and I have had so many thoughts like “what the heck, how am I not involved in anything??”  And then I was comforted by some of our discussions on how Perez emphasizes the ways in which religion is present in cooking. I don’t cook for Orishas or deities or necessarily think of any spiritual beings while cooking but I surely can resonate with the emotions, forms of thinking, and the beauty of conversation evoked through co...

  Web Blog Sensory Interpretation Blog Prompt or 6? 5 senses... Welcome!  Here is the Web post  Assignment for our class, and general guidelines for what to include in your posts Sensory Interpretation Web Blog Posts  (6 posts on each of the senses, 5% each, plus one summarizing blog post the last week of class 10%, for a total of 40%).  Short reflection writing assignments to be posted on a blog set up specifically for this class  here . Students will "log" what they are learning about the relationship between the senses and "religious" experience throughout the term, and be able to comment on one another's questions and insights.  You should make at least 7 posts, @one every two weeks. Make sure you have one post each tagged with "taste", "smell", "hearing", "sight", "touch" or "6th sense."  To assure you will get credit for covering each of the six senses in your blog posts, edit them to make sure th...

Over the past month, I got really sick. It got to the point where they thought I had gotten the coronavirus and I spent a really “wonderful” day visiting 2 hospitals and being put in the COVID section. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t open my eyes to see because light would send piercing pain throughout my head. I got accustomed to being wrapped in a blanket when I got intense chills. I couldn’t smell because of my stuffed up nose. I was used to hearing my doctor on the phone asking the question, “have you been in contact with anyone who has been investigated for corona?”  My senses were overloaded and not working at the same time. I couldn’t enjoy what I used to enjoy. Have no fear, I did not have the corona. Instead, I got a really fun case of mono. How’d I get that in quarantine? I have no idea. Already being chronically ill, getting any other disease makes it feel ten times worse.   The view I had of my crocs in hospital room #2  All I wanted was to go back t...

I wasn't sure about how I wanted to finish the blog posts for this course, so I decided to spend some time with my senses and just share some observations. It is a sunny evening and so I figured it would be perfect to sit outside and reflect on what I have learned over the course of this semester. Smell : The smell of nature is difficult to describe, but there is definitely a smell. I don't know if I can put the smells of nature into words, but I feel like there is a slight smell in the air after a snow or rain storm or in the morning when there is still dew on the grass. Ackerman states that "nothing is more memorable than a smell" and I couldn't agree more (Ackerman, 5). When I thought about the smell of nature it made me immediately think about mornings walking to the bus stop as a kid after it had snowed and there was always a fresh smell in the air. Taste : I don't know if there is a specific taste that I notice right now as I sit on the porch, but ...

One interesting aspect of taste that's always intrigued me is how we use it as a basic metaphor for experiencing different emotions. I believe that "tasting defeat" is especially common, perhaps even cliché, as though you cannot "taste" defeat, you certainly can be overwhelmed by these feelings, negative or positive, and subsequently associate certain feelings with certain tastes. The two most significant holidays I can think of that I associate strongly with happiness and contentedness due to taste are Thanksgiving and Passover. Obviously, these two holidays revolve around food, but Passover has more nuances when it comes to tastes, specifically when participants eat bitter herbs, drink wine, and recite phrases and words before the actual meal. My family and friends that we celebrate Passover with describe the initial bitterness as a way for us to appreciate the more flavorful aspects of the meal. Passover Meal, Sheri Silver Though Thanksgiving is not reli...

When it comes to cooking in the kitchen, there can often be gender roles. In the Rielly household, we usually all cook our own breakfast and lunch, but for supper, we usually always share the same meal. In my house, there are no gender roles. If you use a plate, put it in the dishwasher. If you cook, clean up the mess. Just because I am a woman does not mean I was born to be in the kitchen. Degrading stereotypes aside, you really don’t want me cooking anyways. I once burned a pan when making a grilled cheese because I left the stovetop on after I was done. However, I like to think I have redeemed myself with my years of baking. My dad does most of the cooking because he likes it. We joke that when my mom makes a meal for the family she has done her cooking for the month.   Chefs working on their creations © When reading Elizabeth Perez’s Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions, I kept noticing how important it was to them that...

In Religion in the Kitchen , Elizabeth Perez states that “over the last two decades, scholars engaged in the academic study of religion have increasingly come to regard the human body as a malleable multi-sensory interface continually reconfigured through ritual practice” (10). This quote at first caught my attention but for some reason I could not understand why, it took me a bit to understand that being part of different cultural environments changes my emotions. For example, whenever my family and relatives are having a get-together, being surrounded by Armenian culture changes how I feel. My grandparents were born and raised in Armenia, immigrating to the United States they brought their culture with them. On Sunday’s, my grandparents would invite us over along with my cousins to have Khash for breakfast: an Armenian dish that’s made of boiled cow or sheep, along with onion, and is served with vodka for adults. Personally, I did not enjoy this, however, every time I taste this...

In Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions , Perez talks of Ashabi and her grandchildren providing food offerings to their ancestors. This immediately reminded me of the practice of food sacrifice in early China. I've taken Chinese language classes for about 7 years now and in one of the lessons, we learned about food as well as the history of food in Chinese culture. Ashabi and her grandchildren would give food offerings to their ancestors every day. This included nine beverages (coffee, liquor, and water mixed with sugar and molasses) and nine square pieces of coconut topped with red palm oil and guinea pepper. The offerings would also include whatever food was dropped on the ground. In their house, food dropping on the floor signified more than it would in common American households. It signified that the ancestors wanted that food and had willingly made it fall to the floor. They also used dishware that had been chipped which was...

When I see the title of chapter two, "Kitchen, Food, and Family", in Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions by Elizabeth Pérez I immediately think of Thanksgiving. While the traditions of my family Thanksgiving are far from what is described in this book, it is the closest connection I can relate to her described experiences. My kitchen- decorated for Thanksgiving. In A Natural History of The Senses by Diane Ackerman she describes the sense of taste as "the social sense" because "humans rarely choose to dine in solitude, and food has a powerful social component" (Ackerman, 127). I think this social element that can be seen in Religion in the Kitchen is what I am most strongly connecting to my personal experience during Thanksgiving. Pérez states that "practitioners talk while they cook... around kitchen tables...over charcoal grills, wood fires, and gas stoves" and describes this as "comm...

     In most religions, taste is a sense that seems to be very underrated. The foods prepared for religious holidays, ceremonies, etc. all have special meanings to the religion. Things such as where it is prepared, how it is prepared, and what is said before it is to be eaten is tradition. Also, getting together with family members for religious meals is very meaningful, which is touched upon by Elizabeth Pèrez in her book, Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions (2016).      Growing up Jewish, I can definitely relate to how taste is incorporated within Judaism. Holidays such as Hanukkah, Rosh Hashanah, and Pesach (Passover) all have certain foods meaningful to them, as we say the respective prayers and feast. The holiday that has always been a point of emphasis for our family to get together is Passover. Every year, my grandparents host both sides of the family for Passover. My grandmother being very religio...

        Taste is often seen as lesser sense, especially concerning religion. There is less revelation in taste, sublime experiences are seen, not tasted. This view of taste means that its importance to religious practices and bonding are easily overlooked. Taste subtly brings people together by sharing meals and cooking together. This sense is the foundation of bonding by being a daily activity. People need to eat multiple times a day every day in order to survive. This provides ample amounts of time to connect with one another while cooking and eating. Day by day, small conversations that slowly build into something greater.  Spaghetti In her experience with Afro-Cuban religious practices in Chicago detailed in her book, Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the making of Black Atlantic Traditions , Elizabeth Perez noted the general unwillingness many of the converts initially had about joining the community. The people Perez met were not to th...

Throughout Religion in the Kitchen, Pérez explains how the religious practices of the Lacumi are more centralized around the idea of devotion rather than understanding or actual belief. She illustrates that the micropractices that the members of the Lacumi do on a daily basis maintain their devotion to the gods and keep them within the sphere of influence of the religion itself. To me, I see this as more of a cult than a religion because this organization prizes membership higher than actual faith. The ways that  the Lacumi are kept in line and a part of the religion are that they constantly follow what they are told to do without question and value the gods above all else. We referenced in class the man who was forced to quit his business job because it posed a threat to his devotion, thus showing that this religion demands quite a bit from its members. But what I believe is one of the more impactful ways that the Lacumi cultivate devotion is described in the Conclusion....