The Theology of Food

Eating and the Eucharist

Angel F. Méndez-Montoya

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781118241479
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Theology

The links between religion and food have been known for centuries, and yet we rarely examine or understand the nature of the relationship between food and spirituality, or food and sin. Drawing on literature, politics, and philosophy as well as theology, this book unlocks the role food has played within religious tradition.

• A fascinating book tracing the centuries-old links between theology and food, showing religion in a new and intriguing light
• Draws on examples from different religions: the significance of the apple in the Christian Bible and the eating of bread as the body of Christ; the eating and fasting around Ramadan for Muslims; and how the dietary laws of Judaism are designed to create an awareness of living in the time and space of the Torah
• Explores ideas from the fields of literature, politics, and philosophy, as well as theology
• Takes seriously the idea that food matters, and that the many aspects of eating –table fellowship, culinary traditions, the aesthetic, ethical and political dimensions of food– are important and complex, and throw light on both religion and our relationship to food

1

The Making of Mexican Molli and Alimentary Theology in the Making

Doña Soledad’s recipe for mole poblano – a traditional Mexican dish – contains a total of 33 ingredients. After they have been prepared these ingredients are ground until they are a refined powder (similar to ground coffee) which can then be stored in the freezer for a long time. In fact, similar to a good red wine, the older the mole, the better is its taste. It was Doña Soledad herself, a 60-year-old mother and grandmother living in Mexico City, who taught me how to prepare this complex dish. Her son, who is a professional chef, also became my mentor in teaching me how to make this Mexican recipe. Besides learning how to make mole, I also wanted to share it with my friends in a big fiesta, or feast. We were initially planning to make it for about 20 people. However, we ended up preparing mole for 100 people, and decided to divide the ground mole into equal parts to store it and use it for future dinner parties.

Doña Soledad learnt this recipe from her mother, who in turn learnt it from her mother – and this chain goes back many generations. In fact, and as we shall see in this chapter, one of the origins of this dish goes back as far as pre-Colombian times. Making this ancient recipe took us about 12 hours from buying the ingredients to the final product. After a long day’s work, we put all the prepared ingredients into a local industrial mill, to make a refined powder. We then put this powder to “rest” in the freezer. Two weeks later, Doña Soledad’s recipe was first shared amongst my friends in a farewell dinner before my departure for Cambridge, England. The remaining mole powder was later made up into the final dish in England, among the Dominican friars of my community at Blackfriars in Cambridge, and then, six months later, among a community of Dominicans in Berlin. The more I cooked mole, the more I learned how to refine my touch in finding the perfect balance, allowing all the ingredients to interact and create true gastronomic pleasure. Through this experience of preparing and sharing mole among friends I became aware of an analogy that could be suggested between the making and sharing of this dish and the art of doing (or making) theology – which is also a sort of co-crafting (involving both God and humanity), a “culinary product.”

By taking the Mexican mole as a metaphor, and a cultural, material, and concrete practice, the main purpose of this first chapter is to explore what it means to practice theology in general, and to partake of the eucharistic banquet in particular, in that both are eccentric alimentary hybrids that feed our hunger. The chapter will build the foundations for the main argument of this book: theology’s vocation is to become a form of nourishment to people, and in doing so imitate God’s nurturing gesture of sharing. Thus, here I will look at the preparation of food (in this case, Mexican mole) as a paradigm for engaging in the crafting of theology, and I will discuss theology in terms of food to be shared.

These interrelated and mutually constitutive elements of nourishment and theology I will call “alimentary theology.” I will speak from my experience as a Catholic, and as one who is increasingly becoming “tricultural” (Mexican, American, and English). I hope that my particular angle may provide some food for thought to people from diverse religious and cultural practices, and to those who think about how religious beliefs may become transformative and nourishing.

Of course mole and theology are not identical, and so this comparison might sound contrived. My intention is not to collapse the differences and clear distinctions that exist between them. I only desire to stretch the theological imagination regarding thinking and talking about God as well as practicing the Eucharist, which I firmly believe is not only something concerned with reason, faith, and doctrine, but is also the bringing together of complex ingredients – such as the body and the senses, materiality and the Spirit, culture and the construction of meaning, and a divine–human blending of desires.

1 Doña Soledad’s Mole

Ingredients

100 g. garlic, chopped

150 g. onion, chopped

250 g. almonds

250 g. hazelnuts

125 g. pine nuts

125 g. pistachios

250 g. shelled peanuts

250 g. cashew nuts

250 g. fresh plums, stoned and chopped

250 g. raw pumpkin, peeled and chopped

250 g. raisins

8 tablespoons anise

50 g. ground cinnamon

500 g. sesame seeds

2 tablespoons cloves

4 tablespoons cumin powder

250 g. coriander seeds

2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns

2 tablespoons ground black pepper

50 g. fresh ginger, peeled and chopped

500 g. wide chilies (a dry poblano pepper with a reddish hue)

1.25 kg. mulato chilies

1.25 kg. pasilla chilies (both mulato and pasilla are varieties of capsicum annuum; mulato is a dry poblano pepper, but with a darker hue than wide chilies)

80 g. seeds from the three sorts of chili

50 g. avocado leaves

20 g. bay leaf

20 g. marjoram

50 g. fresh horseradish

180 g. dark chocolate, chopped

200 g. brown sugar

20 g. fresh chopped thyme leaves

100 g. breadcrumbs

100 g. tortilla corn

sunflower or maize oil for cooking

salt to taste

Preparing the mole powder

Remove the veins and as many seeds as possible from the chilies.

Put the chilies in a tray, drizzle with oil, and put them in the oven for 10 minutes at 150°C.

Put the hazelnuts, peanuts, cashews, and the seeds from the chilies in a tray, drizzle a small amount of oil on them, and roast them in the oven for ten minutes to release their flavors.

Using a small amount of oil, fry the spices (anise, cinnamon, sesame seeds, cloves, coriander, black pepper, and ginger) with the chopped garlic and onion until golden.

Once these ingredients have been roasted and fried, put them into a manual or industrial mill together with all the remaining ingredients and salt to taste, and grind until you have a fine, well-mixed powder.

Cooking the mole

Enough for 10 people.

400 g. mole as prepared above
250 g. red tomatoes, skinned and chopped
2.5 liters chicken broth
140 g. dark chocolate, broken into pieces
salt, pepper, and brown sugar to taste
oil for frying

Sauté the tomatoes in a frying pan, then add some of the chicken broth. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes (or until the acidity of the tomatoes disappears).

Add the remaining broth, and then add the mole bit by bit, very slowly, until it has all dissolved. Add the chocolate, and finally add salt, pepper, and sugar to taste. It should have the consistency of a thick sauce.

For a better taste, cook the mole a day before serving it so that it can be rested to allow the flavor to develop.

To serve, bring the mole to boiling point and serve warm over cooked chicken, pasta, rice, or vegetables.

It was very early on a Friday morning, about 6 a.m., when I met with Israel (Doña Soledad’s youngest son, and a professional chef) in hectic Mexico City – a city of about 20 million people. We drove towards the periphery of the city to La Central de Abastos (the Central Supply Station), which is a 304-hectare outlet with all sorts of wholesales supplies, including food products, furniture, clothing, plants, and so on.¹ Most businesses in Mexico City and from neighboring towns obtain their products there for a significantly reduced price. Israel was very focused on finding the very best ingredients for the mole. It took us nearly two hours to collect everything we needed and then carry it to the car. Since we had decided to make enough mole for about 100 people (since it improves with storage), some of the bags we carried were very large and heavy.

¹ For more information on the Central de Abastos, see the weblink: <www.ficeda.com.mx>.

But nothing was as arduous as having to open and remove all the veins and seeds from each of the three kinds of chili (the first step of the preparation). There were hundreds of them. To do this, we needed to put on plastic gloves in order to protect our skin from their spice and acidity. There were four of us doing the job: Doña Soledad, Israel, Rodney – a visiting friend from the US who offered his help – and me. Just getting the chilies ready took us about two hours. Once we finished, we moved on to the second step of the recipe (frying, roasting, and seasoning the ingredients). In performing this second step it is fascinating to observe the change of texture and color of the ingredients: some become darker, while others acquire a pale color, some become smoother while others become rough. This step is also “choreographical”: the ingredients dance to a kind of music while being fried and roasted. But even more fascinating is realizing how, little by little, the sense of smell intensifies when the many spices and ingredients start releasing their aroma. The smell that spread in the house became too intense, almost unbearable. When we put the chilies in the oven we had to open all windows and doors, and at times step outside, for the scent of hundreds of roasted chilies not only penetrated our nostrils, but was felt on the skin and in the eyes as well.

Once they were ready we put all the prepared ingredients (which we previously put into large saucepans) in the mill. Israel insisted on achieving a very refined powder in order to obtain a good mixture, so we ground and reground the products seven times. It was nearly 7 p.m. when we finally obtained our precious mole powder, which we then put in plastic bags in the freezer to let it rest and allow the flavors to mingle. And a good rest was what I was truly longing for at this point.

Two weeks later, the mole was ready to cook for the first time. Israel was also my guide in moving on to this third step. We met a day before the fiesta to prepare the mole sauce and let it rest for one day before serving. The most exhausting task at this point was dissolving the ground powder into the boiling liquid chicken broth (previously mixed with the tomatoes and seasoning). One has to pour in the powder very slowly, until it is entirely dissolved in the liquid, which, little by little, starts to acquire a dark brown-red color. As the pouring in and stirring of the mixture progresses, the mole sauce becomes thicker and darker. As the sauce is heated, the scent of all the spices and ingredients permeates first the kitchen, and then the entire house. Performing this step was a corporeal, mantra-like experience: constantly pouring in the mole powder, letting it dissolve, and stirring the sauce. I also included a repetitive prayer – similar to praying the rosary – to Pascual Bailón (I shall say more about him later) to ask for his spiritual assistance in making this mole truly exquisite. After completing enough sauce for 20 people, the mole sauce was finally ready, and had a glorious smell. We then turned the heat off, and after letting it cool for a few hours we put it in the fridge.

The following day we prepared the farewell fiesta at a friend’s house. Several friends arrived early in the afternoon to help. Israel and I cooked chicken thighs and legs. Once these were ready, we put the cooked chicken into the mole sauce, and allowed it to heat very slowly. We had also prepared a mushroom soup for our first course. The mole was the second and main course, and we planned to serve it with white rice and home-made corn tortillas. For dessert, we served vanilla ice cream with mint Irish cream on top (as we shall see later, serving mole allows you to play with syncretism, so including Irish cream for dessert offered a bit of international flavor to our dinner). We also decided to serve very good tequila for the dinner drink, which we served in small glasses.

Everything was ready when the guests started to arrive around 7 p.m. The table (large and with space for 20 people) was set with flowers and candles. Since the weather was lovely – it was the middle of spring – we decided to place the table in the garden. We sat at the table around 8.30 p.m., so as to allow our guests time to arrive, socialize, and have drinks before dinner. Since all the guests were close friends of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise for The Theology of Food
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction Food Talk: Overlapping Matters
• 1 The Making of Mexican Molli and Alimentary Theology in the Making
• 2 Sabor/Saber : Taste and the Eros of Cognition
• 3 Being Nourished: Food Matters
• 4 Sharing in the Body of Christ and the Theopolitics of Superabundance
• Conclusion Food Notes: Prolegomenon to a Eucharistic Discourse
• Index