Does God have a recipe? Independent food historian Christina Ward\'s highly anticipated Holy Food explores the influence of mainstream to fringe Religious beliefs on modern American food culture.
Also includes over black and white images..
Holy Food features over 75 recipes from Religious and communal groups tested and updated for modern cooks.
Ward skillfully navigates between academic studies, interviews, cookbooks, and Religious texts to make sharp observations and new insights into American History in this highly readable journey through the American kitchen.
And at the obscure sects and communities of the 20th Century who dabbled in vague spirituality that used food to both entice and control followers.
Holy Food looks at how the explosion of Religious Movements since the Great Awakenings (the nationwide Religious revivals in the 1730s-40s and 1795-1835) birthed a cottage industry of food fads that gained mainstream acceptance.
In America, where the freedom to worship the god of your choice and sometimes of your own making, embraced old traditions and invented new ones.
Rules about eating are present in nearly every American belief, from high-control groups that ban everything except air to the infamous strawberry shortcake that sated visitors to the Oneida Community in the late 1800s.
A long-ago Pope forbade Catholics to eat meat on Fridays (fasting to atone for committed sins).
Religious beliefs have been the source of food rules since Pythagoras told his followers not to eat beans (they contain souls), Kosher and Halal rules forbade the shrimp cocktail (shellfish are scavengers, or maybe G-d just said no).
Holy Food explains how faith pioneers used societal woes and cultural trends to create new pathways of belief and reveals the interconnectivity between sects and their leaders.
It\'s the story of true believers and charlatans, of idealists and visionaries, and of the everyday people who followed them--often at their peril.
Author Christina Ward unravels the numerous ways Religious beliefs intersect with politics and economics and, of course, food to tell a different story of America.
Does God have a recipe? Independent food historian Christina Ward\'s highly anticipated Holy Food explores the influence of mainstream to fringe Religious beliefs on modern American food culture
