Sacred Food: Cooking for Spiritual Nourishment

by Elisabeth Luard

Celebrating the power of food to nourish souls and its vital part in religious ceremonies and secular celebrations, this cookbook offers insights into food that go far beyond recipes. It explores the dishes that are traditionally served at significant moments in human life—birth, puberty, courtship, betrothal and marriage, death, burial, and remembrance—and explains why and how we celebrate with food. More than 40 recipes include pan de muertos, prepared for the Mexican Day of the Dead; piroshki from Slovakia, to celebrate the birth of a baby; cassava with chili and peanuts, to mark an African girl’s coming-of-age; and honey cake, prepared for a Turkish wedding feast. The vibrant ceremonies and dishes are lavishly illustrated with color photographs, bringing to life a wealth of recipes and myriad cultures including those of Mexico, Japan, Spain, Italy, Indonesia, North America, the Middle East, Germany, Scandinavia, and Britain.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Nonfiction, Religion

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Elisabeth Luard is an award-winning food-writer, journalist and broadcaster who often illustrates her own work. Her most recent cookbook, A Cook's Year in a Welsh Kitchen with photography by Clare Richardson, was published by Bloomsbury in 2010. Previous books include European Peasant Cookery (US The Old World Kitchen), Festival Food and Tapas, all of which are in print with Grub Street. Others include Classic Spanish and Soups (Octopus), The Latin American Kitchen, The Food of Spain and Portugal and Food Adventures: Introducing your Child to Flavours around the World (Kyle Cathie) - written with daughter-in-law Frances Boswell, and Truffles (Frances Lincoln). She is currently Trustee Director of The Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, contributes a monthly column to Richard Ingrams The Oldie Magazine, and is a member of the team at online culinary magazine Zester Daily. She has published 2 novels, one of which, Emerald, won the WH Smith Thumping Good Read Award. Her work as a journalist appears regularly in The Daily Mail, The Scotsman, Country Living, Cambria Magazine, The Jewish Chronicle and the TLS.

Reviews

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful insightful book and was good for my assingment on Religious dietary requirements.