Alexis Soyer and Military Food

For each team, the natural, national taste of their country emerges. The Americans cook big, with loud flavours, the Hungarians are honest and peasanty, the French are effortlessly the best. Far more than flags and anthems, food is the metaphor and symbol of where you come from and what you might choose to die for. The breakfast of armies is the most basic communion with what they're fighting for. Soyer was a foreigner who took to being English with an immigrant enthusiasm. He understood that armies don't just march on their stomachs; they get their camaraderie, bravery and patriotism through them.

A. A. Gill - The Dinner Party

We are the only animals in God's creation who share our food with members of our own species to whom we are not related. There is a kitchen adage that says: 'If the food is the star of your dinner party then you're inviting the wrong people.' Let's face it: dinner parties are social events and the company is the main thing.

A.A. Gill - Table Talk (Orion Books 2008)

The Prayer of Humble Access

We do not presume to come to this your table, merciful Lord,
trusting in our own righteousness,
but in your manifold and great mercies.
We are not worthy
so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.
But you are the same Lord, whose nature is always to have mercy:
Grant us therefore, gracious Lord,
so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood,
that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body,
and our souls washed through his most precious blood,
and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

This wonderful prayer by Thomas Cranmer which we find in the heart of the service of Holy Communion from the time of the reformation, turns the the experience of the Canaanite woman and makes it our own. We, like her, knowing that we are complete outsiders but are drawing near anyway for the Bread of life - knowing also that His nature is always to have mercy.

The Heavenly Banquet

In the story of the Heavenly Banquet mentioned in Luke 14:8-13, Jesus appears to offer an universal invitation and but not universal hospitality. However our continued presence is not determined by status but by the criteria for remaining welcome - the wedding robe. Which is reminiscent of the clothes put on in Colossians 3.

Dining Together

Dining together is not only a sociable thing to do, it is also an experience through which relationships are formed and learning takes place. Meals invariably involve conversation and conversation involves listening which leads to empathy, challenge and change. Matthew (Levi) organises a symposium and invites Jesus not just to eat but to teach (Luke 5:29-35). In the course of the meal change takes place.

Eucharistic Food

The act of remembrance comes through eating. We may not always remember what we eat but in Christ we eat what we remember. Christ both word and bread. He is the bread of life and always has been. In eating we take it into ourselves, and it becomes part of us and we part of it. The physical and spiritual become inseparable.

Fashion Taste and Eating Out

The fashionability of dining out has meant that the practice has become more than a means for maintaining the body, it has become a source of shared cultural beliefs. For example, foodstuffs have frequently acquired social meanings that refer to properties beyond their nutritional qualities. In certain times and places, the taste for game has been associated with wealth and prestige because it was hunted by the landed gentry; oysters have been regarded as aphrodisiacs; truffles have been seen as embodiments of the mysteries of old Europe. Barthes has described food as 'a system of communication', 'a body of images', 'an intimate part of the protocol of social life'. Similarly, the places in which one eats carry various meanings; a restaurant has distinctions that a cafe, a tavern and a picnic do not. The diner sees in both the restaurant and its foodstuffs some broader social values; for example, a luxuriously appointed restaurant may evoke an aristocratic way of life long associated with the pleasures of being served by an indentured class. Or an appetite for and 'au courant' view that food is not a banal and simple ingredient in the maintenance of life but rather a cultural event and form of aesthetic in which its arrangement and colouring should be appreciated as if they were works of art. In these ways, the practice of dining out in a restaurant can also be seen as a purveyor of cultural values and social images; it is where we can learn to act and feel in accord with the desires of the times.

When people start flocking to a small, inner city bar because they have learned that cocktails are in (again), they also come to see that the hours spent over a gaudily coloured beverage are amongst their most pleasurable; when the pasta restaurant becomes the favourite haunt of the cosmopolitan it has much to do with his/her acceptance of the idea that ethnic diversity is attractive. The different meanings and cultural values attached to the various forms of dining out indicate that tastes in foods and preferences in the style of dining out are not independent of other features of the social epoch. Restaurants have been included in the orbit of fashions.

Fashion, Taste and Eating Out - Joanne Finkelstein
The Polity Reader in Cultural Theory (Polity Press: Cambridge 1994)

TC @ YG 5

Another Tuesday - another YG gathering and a further opportunity to experiment with the TC format. This week we used some wise words of famous people on the subjects of Leadership and Service to stimulate the conversation over dinner. This proved quite effective and the balance between the two subjects meant that the focus was both inward (Leadership) and outward (Service). Here are two samples of the the quotations that we used.

Try not to become a person of success,
but rather a person of value - Albert Einstein

Life's most persistent and urgent question is
'What are you doing for others?' - Martin Luther King Jr.

The Perpetual Struggle for Room and Food

The English economist Robert Malthus, in his essay "On the Principles of Population" written in 1798, uses this telling phrase to describe much of the the underlying motives of the human condition. He suggests that it is the cause of a 'prodigious waste of human life'. The basic need for food and shelter must be met before man can entertain much consideration of the nature of life and the existence of God. It is a struggle still being undertaken today by much of the developing world.

The Company Makes the Feast

If you ever wondered where this phrase originated, then this is for you. Here are the results of my research. It was true in the 17th Century and remains so today.

Take this for a rule, you may pick out such times and such companies, that you may make yourselves merrier,‥for 'tis the company and not the charge [expense] that makes the feast.

[1653 I. Walton Compleat Angler iii.]

Epicurus maintained that you should rather have regard to the company with whom you eat‥than to what you eat. ‥This has been crystallised into the terse English proverb, ‘The company makes the feast.’

[1911 F. W. Hackwood Good Cheer xxxii.]

It is the company which makes the occasion, not the surroundings.

[1981 ‘J. Sturrock’ Suicide most Foul vi.]

A Comparison of the Life of Man (1598)

Man's life is well compared to a feast,
Furnisht with choice of all Varietie;
To it comes Tyme; and as a bidden guest
Hee sets him downe, in Pompe and Maiestie;
The three-folde Age of Man, the Waiters bee:
Then with an earthen voyder (made of clay)
Comes Death, and takes the table clean away.

(Richard Barnfield, "A Comparison of the Life of Man")

A salutary thought on life and food from the Elizabethan era.

Table Church - Nourishment

We had our third Table Church meeting tonight and the focus was on the things that nourish us - in body, mind and spirit. There were baked potatoes and fillings with fruit to follow. However much was made of the groups love of Pizza and chocolate (not together) and the possibilities of chocolate covered strawberries. We felt that we neglected our own nourishment or let it get pushed out by the pressures of life. We finished with the film '40' by Si Smith (available from Proost) with reminded us that Jesus nourished his faith in the desert which enabled him to deal with the hard times of temptation. Thank you everyone for a very good evening.

Interestingly this is my 100th post and it was about an actual Table Church evening.

TC @ YG 4

On with the show - the young people are meeting again this week and I shall be with them after a brief spell away at the Ecumenical Church Council meeting (argh!). This time there will be desserts flown in from elsewhere - so that should be interesting. I am still pondering what the topic for the evening will be - should we connect with Lent or perhaps something will arise to tempt us into bringing our faith to bear on the world in which we live.

Table Church 3

Our third evening of Table Church will be taking place tomorrow evening. It is going to be at our house and I believe that baked potatoes are the order of the day. Although we did have a small freezer crisis so there are all sorts of things that need eating up. Who would of thought that the Lord would provide a group of people especially to see that nothing goes to waste. We shall be thinking further about what it means to belong to the church and considering how we nourish our faith and that of other people.

Silent Eucharist

Tonight as part of our Ikon Alternative Worship evening we held a silent Eucharist. From the invocation of the Holy Spirit with a huge windmill, to the bubbles signifying forgiveness and the action creed - the whole evening was a very powerful expression of the presence of God. In the midst of it all there was a table laden with bread and wine, candles pictures and prayers. It was a feast for all the senses and reminded us of the banquet to which Jesus constantly invites us.

Sleeping With Bread

At the start of their wonderful book Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives you Life (Paulist Press, 1995) the Linns (Dennis, Sheila Fabricant and Matthew) tell the story of the children who were orphaned and left to starve during the Second World War. Many of those who were rescued and placed in refugee camps were discovered to be unable to sleep at night. Eventually the helpers discovered that, if the children were given a piece of bread to hold, they were able to go to sleep in the guarantee that they would find nourishment in the morning.

Quoted by Paula Gooder in her Lent Course - Lentwise (Church House)

TC @ YG 3

The TC @ YG continues this coming Tuesday. This will be our third event and we hope that we will all be able to join together around the table. It will be evening with pie both shepherd's and apple. Perhaps we should also consider Pi - just why did God not make it an exact number like 3. Why is it such an odd thing? This may lead us to consider just why the world seems such an odd place and yet at the same time just right for us.


Here is a photograph of our last occasion and also of our trip to Plymouth to see Jenny at University. As you can see the main feature of the visit was chocolate cake. The TC is a moveable feast.

Belshazzar's Feast

One of the most memorable occasions concerning food contained in the Old Testament is that of Belshazzar's feast recorded in the book of Daniel. Here is a meal that is completely earth bound. The company praise the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, whilst ignoring the creator who had provided all that they were sharing. God intervenes with the message that their days and the days of their kingdom are numbered. The connection between God and the table are literally writ large in this event. The table is the Lord's and he expects a place to kept for him.

Rembrandt created a famous image of the meal in his painting.

Moses And The First Fast Food

Moses could in some way be regarded as the provider of fast food. The passover meal was cooked and served with the people standing and in their outdoor clothes because they had to be ready to leave as soon as God gave the word. Obviously the the golden arches originally stood for Moses not McDonald's.

The passover has become unbreakably connected with a meal shared among family, friends and strangers. All our shared meals owe something to the passover which calls us to gird our loins and live in anticipation of freedom.

Celebrating With Jesus

"There is something fundamentally religious in celebrating a festival, because it gives an opportunity to rejoice in the bountiful gifts of God, which we find not only in food but also in relationships, leisure, games and relaxation. These pleasures are also fundamentally human, so it is no surprise that festivals involve eating and drinking. We are built to want to give thanks and we are built to socialize of course, we need to eat. So whether we are feasting at God in the presence of Christ or simply dining at home, let us remember God's gifts, his generosity to us, not only in food and drink but in Jesus Christ."

Gordon Giles - Fasting and Feasting (BRF)

Jesus and Hospitality

‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home.'
Matthew 25:34-35

These are the words of Jesus and they suggest that one of the first signs of faith in a person is the practice of hospitality. Here Jesus mentions food, drink and a welcome to the table. When practiced in life assures us of a welcome at his future banquet.

Adam's Apple

This passage (Genesis 2) is not only about sin it about food. The question of choice - what to eat or what not to eat arises. In many ways we have taken for granted that God has the right to decide this issue for us. However in this supermarket age it has become more difficult for people to accept. Today we have so much choice that we over eat. Overeating is a form of disobedience and a rejection of our natural limitations - a form of slow suicide which rejects our accountability to God.

Based on Gordon Giles - Fasting and Feasting

Adam, Jesus and Food

The link between Adam, Jesus and food is quite strong. Adam gives in to the eating of an apple, whereas Jesus resists the offer of bread making. Jesus says that he is the 'Bread of Life' and when Satan tempts him, it is to externalise that which he in his very being. It is almost a caricature of himself.