The Theology of Food

In the first chapter of The Theology of Food: Eating and the Eucharist, Angel Mendez-Montoya provides the reader with an engaging description of the process of preparing, cooking, and sharing the Mexican dish mole pablano with his family and friends. He likens this to the act of doing theology. The laborious gathering of numerous ingredients, their skillfully intermingling in the act of cooking, and finally, the hospitality of the table where the food is shared are all means to envision correct theological practice. Mendez-Montoya names this embodied, participatory mode of doing theology “alimentary theology.” Mendez-Montoya is both part of the academy (he teaches philosophy and theology at Universidad Iberoamericana, a Jesuit-run university in Mexico City) and a member of a religious community (he is a Dominican Friar of the Southern Province of the United States). His vision of theology is as a generous, all-embracing, hospitable discipline; a practice that feeds those who partake in it, as well as the wider world; and a theoretical reflection that simultaneously engages with ethical questions. The book is a striking manifesto for this “alimentary theology,” and will be received with interest by theologians, all scholars interested in material religion—and in particular, in food—as well as by general readers.

Comparative Theology · Eucharist · Hospitality · Manifesto · Political science · Sociology · Theology · Tourism · Law · Philosophy · Religion, Ecology, and Ethics