Religion and Food

The relationship between food and religion is a lived activity formed by the dynamics of both tradition and adaption. Religious commitments to food are influenced by several different factors, ranging from personal spirituality and experiences to social patterns of belonging as well as ethical, political and doctrinal convictions related to food and eating. Today, this topic is receiving increasing scholarly attention and has become a relevant focus to a broad spectrum of researchers working with different religious traditions and contemporary spiritualities. This volume addresses the questions of why and how persons of various religious and spiritual liaisons seem to engage in food and eating with a growing zeal today from a variety of different theoretical and methodological angles, such as: folkways/foodways and vernacular practices; tradition, memory, and nostalgia; boundaries, identity, and control; symbolism, authenticity, and fluidity; consumption and abstention; ethics and environmentalism; the global, local, and glocal.