What is the role of food in religion? Can you think of any examples in a religion where food represents something beyond itself?
Religion and food have always been intrinsically linked. In Christianity, bread is offered to church-goers as a metaphor for the body of Christ and eaten as a way to be closer to God. This is a significant ritual, but there is more to food and religion than just bread and wine, and Dr Thompson’s perspective in his lecture and the reading, although valuable, were very limiting in this regard. So I will attempt to expand on the role of food in religion with something a bit different.
“The gift should be the boon” is a line from the Hávamál, and means that if you want something from the gods, you must offer something first. This idea of sacrifice as an exchange of favours, or as a way of showing respect, is prevalent in many religions. In Greco-Roman worship and other ancient forms of paganism, animals were blessed and killed at an altar and the meat distributed to a crowd. And this concept of blessed and humane butchering survives today in kosher and halal dietary laws.
A less dramatic way of sacrificing food is leaving an offering outside for animals to take, something many modern pagans do, as the gods are considered to be part of nature.
Food is a necessity, so offering it to the gods is a meaningful sacrifice. It is the act of giving something up that is important, a gift for a kindness. A gift that is the boon.
