Earlier this week, I listened to an interview with author Leslie Leyland Fields. Her relatively new book, The Spirit of Food, sounded very interesting to me. Here’s a bit about it from her website:
You are invited to a feast for the senses and the spirit! Thirty-four renowned and adventurous writers open their fields, their kitchens, their tables, and their recipe files to illustrate the many unexpected ways that food draws us closer to beauty, to justice, to Christian community, and to God. All bring a keen eye and palette to the larger questions of the role of food—both its presence and its absence—in the life of our bodies and spirits. Their essays take us to an organic goat farm in Maine, a backyard tomato garden in Cincinnati, a kosher kitchen, a line of hungry Hurricane Katrina survivors, a church potluck, inside the translucent layers of an onion, and many other surprising places where we can experience Eucharistic eating. In a time of great interest and confusion over the place of food in our lives, this rich collection will delight the senses, feed the spirit, enlarge our understanding, and deepen our ability to “eat and drink to the glory of God.”
Although my nationality is American, I’ve grown up in the East where food plays a different role than it does in the West. This book seems like it’s written from mainly American perspectives and I wonder what Eastern authors’ perspectives would be. I’m sure both have and would have great insights, but, overall, I think that Eastern culture has a better relationship with food than the West does. Have any of you read The Spirit of Food?
