Religion and Food

Food and religion have fascinated me since I was a young teenager and first saw a group of Hare Krishna members distributing free food in the Washington, D.C. mall. Their combination of religious worship, food charity, and proselytization  struck me as noteworthy. When one thinks about the many other ways that food and religion interconnect — holidays, rituals, life cycle events, restrictions, etc. — it becomes clear that this is an area of research  that demands further attention. I founded and chaired the American Academy of Religion’s Religion, Food, and Eating in North America seminar for its five year run. The Seminar is now closed, but a new program unit on Religion & Food has taken its place. The seminar produced a book, Religion, Food, and Eating in North America (publisher link, Amazon link), which is available from Columbia University Press. (Co-edited with my friends and colleagues Marie W. Dallam, Reid L. Neilson, and Nora L. Rubel).

 

My forthcoming Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Food, co-edited with Yudit Greenberg, is intended to bring together the current state of the field in the study of religion and food.