Food; Eating

Thirty essays and stories on the cosmology and geometry, wonder and whimsy, guilt and desire, politics and economics, history and future, the Talmud and the Kabbalah of food

When we eat properly, we can taste the Divine Presence whether the physical taste is pleasing or not.

I know that all are not sustained and nourished here, where I furtively eat behind closed doors. So I expiate my guilt by prayer, and this leads to a new kind of haunting uneasiness

Two cows, they were, sharing a paddock on the same farm...

My daughter was hoping that I'd detect some excuse in the fine print on the wrapper, but I found no visible certification. "I'm sorry, Sarah," I said, handing it back to her after a careful search. "I just don't see any kosher mark."

Have you ever closed a deal, celebrated your marriage (or its anniversary), or simply spent time with a good friend -- without eating something together? Why do our teeth, gullet and stomach figure so prominently in who, how, where and with whom we are?

What is the Torah’s view on meat eating? In our Parshah, the laws and preconditions for eating “meat of desire” (i.e., meat whose consumption is not a mitzvah or a necessity) are set forth—prompting much discussion in the Talmud, the commentaries, and ...

Here was genuine culture, a living tradition, a way of preparing for Tisha B’Av that I had never experienced before. It was an awakening, a discovery of origins. This is where hotdogs come from

Speculations about the Kosher laws: would our rabbis be more successful in getting their message across if they exchanged their black frocks for white lab coats?

Golan apples dipped in honey; raisins and bananas; pumpkin jam, apple jam, and quince jam; leek, dates; pomegranate seeds; candied carrots; beet leaf and sunflower seed patties; piquant fish; heart and lung cooked with black-eyed peas (rubia); and tongue ...