Blurb:

The introduction by the editors provides an entry point to the field. It provides some reminders of familiar themes – those food rules, ritual meals, cultural preferences and abstentions. It seeks to do this in interesting ways, e.g. providing a vignette of what foods different Muslims might share for Iftar rather than blandly stating that Ramadan is a time of fasting. It sets out what has been achieved in previous scholarship about religion and foodways, e.g. pointing to foundational or required reading in the area, perhaps tracing a feast from Mary Douglas’ Purity and Danger (1966) via Caroline Walker Bynum’s Holy Feast and Holy Fast (1988) to Devon Mihesuah and Elizabeth Hoover’s Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States: Restoring Cultural Knowledge, Protecting Environments, and Regaining Health (2019). Even in pointing to these works, the introduction emphasizes the complexity not only of religiously-inflected foodways but also of understanding “religion” and “culture,” “health” and “transcendence” and more. It places the volume in relation to multi- and inter-disciplinary scholarship of food (production, consumption, waste, sovereignty, sustainability, etc.). In addition to encouraging a fuller conversation about the different interests of particular disciplines, the introduction crucially highlights the diversity of approaches and methods that might be applied in studying taste and religion.