Gluttony and starvation, pleasure and pain, growth and decay. These and other extremes of our condition related to food, though all but banned from the "civilized" tables of mainstream fiction, are ideal topics for the "undomesticated," free-roaming modes of fantasy. As acts and ideas, food and eating are fundamental to all that makes us human and dominate our symbolic realms of art, literature, and cuisine. These essays show us the power of speculative modes of fiction to help us look anew at prehistorical and psychomythical attitudes toward food and eating; historical Western-cultural attitudes toward the material fact of food and the necessity of eating; and the relationship between attitudes toward food and how, how much, when, and where we eat. The contributors come from a variety of backgrounds, including anthropology, film, and French, Russian, English, and medieval literature. Ranging in their focus from shamans to cannibals, utopias to social Darwinism, muscle magazines to supermarket tabloids, the contributors discuss the theory and practice of science fictional eating; the dialectic, at the level of eating, between individual needs and collective norms; and the ways that eating habits and the availability and choice of food serve to contextualize and demarcate modern fictional genres. In addition to discussing such writers as C. S. Lewis, Stephen King, Octavia Butler, Jonathan Swift, and Anne Rice, the contributors also consider such films as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast.

The central thesis of this book is that Western culture, and American culture in particular, needs an immediate change with regard to food and eating. Western over-indulgence is exacerbated by hunger and deprivation in the world. Learning to think theologically, and not just medically or psychologically, about one's eating habits will lead to positive personal and communal changes. In Food and God, Joel Soza offers readers a deeper understanding of Christian faith, one that will help them learn to think of eating as not merely a physical act, but as a spiritual exercise. Readers will become more aware of world need and preference for others while also learning how to improve their own health, control their own weight, and develop greater spiritual awareness and sensitivity in the daily and routine activity of eating. This book evaluates both Old and New Testaments, as well as some theology in the history of the Church, to arrive at an understanding of how one should think about food and eating in relationship to God and the world. The reader will learn of the key role food plays in the biblical creation and temptation narratives. They will learn of the enormous labor that went into food preparation in the ancient world, and what sages have had to say about food indulgence throughout time and many cultures. Finally, readers will encounter Jesus's invitation to think about food in spiritual ways, gaining an understanding as to what it means that Christianity is a movement with table fellowship at the forefront of its faith expression.

A native of Italy and a splendid cook herself, Mazzoni savors the food writings and images of a broad spectrum of Catholic saints and holy women, including Catherine of Genoa, Angela of Foligno, Gemma Galgani, and the first person in the United States to be canonized, Elisabeth Ann Seton. Continuum Books

Embraced by Oprah, the #1 New York Times bestselling guide that explains the connection between eating and emotion from Geneen Roth—noted authority on mindful eating. No matter how sophisticated or wealthy or broke or enlightened you are, how you eat tells all. After three decades of studying, teaching, and writing about our compulsions with food, bestselling author Geneen Roth adds a powerful new dimension to her work in Women Food and God. She begins with her most basic concept: the way you eat is inseparable from your core beliefs about being alive. Your relationship with food is an exact mirror of your feelings about love, fear, anger, meaning, transformation and, yes, even God. A timeless and seminal work, Women Food and God shows how going beyond the food and the feelings takes you deeper into realms of spirit and soul—to the bright center of your own life.

A sweeping overview of how and what humans have eaten in their long history as a species The Story of Food in the Human Past: How What We Ate Made Us Who We Are uses case studies from recent archaeological research to tell the story of food in human prehistory. Beginning with the earliest members of our genus, Robyn E. Cutright investigates the role of food in shaping who we are as humans during the emergence of modern Homo sapiens and through major transitions in human prehistory such as the development of agriculture and the emergence of complex societies. This fascinating study begins with a discussion of how food shaped humans in evolutionary terms by examining what makes human eating unique, the use of fire to cook, and the origins of cuisine as culture and adaptation through the example of Neandertals. The second part of the book describes how cuisine was reshaped when humans domesticated plants and animals and examines how food expressed ancient social structures and identities such as gender, class, and ethnicity. Cutright shows how food took on special meaning in feasts and religious rituals and also pays attention to the daily preparation and consumption of food as central to human society. Cutright synthesizes recent paleoanthropological and archaeological research on ancient diet and cuisine and complements her research on daily diet, culinary practice, and special-purpose mortuary and celebratory meals in the Andes with comparative case studies from around the world to offer readers a holistic view of what humans ate in the past and what that reveals about who we are.

Second grade students will delight to study creation based upon the six-day account described in the book of Genesis. Students learn about what God made during each of the days of creation. In full-color format, students explore the creation of the physical world, energy, plants, heavenly bodies, animals, and human beings. This workbook is truly unique and includes helpful review questions and many hands-on activities.

The Araweté are one of the few Amazonian peoples who have maintained their cultural integrity in the face of the destructive forces of European imperialism. In this landmark study, anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro explains this phenomenon in terms of Araweté social cosmology and ritual order. His analysis of the social and religious life of the Araweté—a Tupi-Guarani people of Eastern Amazonia—focuses on their concepts of personhood, death, and divinity. Building upon ethnographic description and interpretation, Viveiros de Castro addresses the central aspect of the Arawete's concept of divinity—consumption—showing how its cannibalistic expression differs radically from traditional representations of other Amazonian societies. He situates the Araweté in contemporary anthropology as a people whose vision of the world is complex, tragic, and dynamic, and whose society commands our attention for its extraordinary openness to exteriority and transformation. For the Araweté the person is always in transition, an outlook expressed in the mythology of their gods, whose cannibalistic ways they imitate. From the Enemy's Point of View argues that current concepts of society as a discrete, bounded entity which maintains a difference between "interior" and "exterior" are wholly inappropriate in this and in many other Amazonian societies.

In Food in the Ancient World, a respected classicist and apractising world-class chef explore a millennium of eating anddrinking. Explores a millennium of food consumption, from c.750 BC to 200AD. Shows the pivotal role food had in a world where it was linkedwith morality and the social order. Concerns people from all walks of life – impoverishedcitizens subsisting on cereals to the meat-eating elites. Describes religious sacrifices, ancient dinner parties anddrinking bouts, as well as exotic foods and recipes. Considers the role of food in ancient literature from Homer toJuvenal and Petronius.