Eating & Drinking Liturgically: The Purpose of a Rightly Ordered Relationship with Food
By Sarah White,
When we first take a look at one of our relationships with the things of this world––food, image, material goods, money, etc.––it typically leads us to look at their relationship with one another. It’s hard to not critically think about and/or work to realign your relationship with body image without also looking at how you value material goods; similarly, it can be difficult to address your relationship with food without also looking at your relationship with money.
And this can be a good thing for us. If any of them need to be realigned, they need to be realigned. Looking at them, working on them, doing the hard work of being honest with ourselves and where we are currently standing versus where we want to stand is a good thing to spend our time doing.
Just like (necessary) criticism with all these topics end up relating to one another eventually, so do the fruits of them being rightly ordered in our lives. If we have a rightly ordered relationship with body image, the fruit of that can carry over and support a rightly ordered relationship with material goods. If we have a rightly ordered relationship with food, the fruit from that relationship can carry over and support a rightly ordered relationship with money.
Our Relationship with Food Affects Our Relationship With Christ
This is not to say that you must have a perfect relationship with food in order to have any functional relationship with Christ, or that if you have a bad relationship with food that means you have a bad relationship with Christ. Both of those statements are in error.
However, all of the fruits of our individual relationships have the capacity, the tendency, and the ability to affect one another, both in the negative and positive ways. So, just as a poor relationship could carry over into a more difficult relationship with Christ, so does a healthy relationship with food have the ability to positively affect your relationship with Christ.
So, if we work to foster, maintain, repair, and protect our relationships with the gifts from Christ, it is that much easier to do the same with the Gift Bearer Himself.
Food is one of His great gifts to us. That is a big reason why it is worth the time, even the painful vulnerability, that it takes to have our relationship with food become rightly ordered in our life. That is not to say that it defines us, nor does it take on moral qualities like making us “good” or “bad,”; a rightly ordered relationship with food simply asks that it is viewed as a gift, treated as a gift in our homes, and valued as a gift in our inner self-talk and our public attitude toward it.
Recipes
Taken from the cookbooks Drinking with the Saints and Cooking with the Saints
November 4, Saint Charles Borromeo
Saint Charles entered the priesthood in 1563 and was appointed archbishop of Milan in 1565. He made some big changes within the city, righting wrongs like priests selling indulgences and clergy who were unaware of basic Catholic teachings. He also founded seminaries and universities with the intention to educate aspiring clergy in preparation for the priesthood. He is the patron saint of bishops, catechists, cardinals… and apple orchards. So, to celebrate him, you can make some baked apples.
Baked Honeycrisp Apples
For the pecan-oat filling…
½ cup pecan pieces
½ cup rolled oats
¼ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
¼ cup raisins
¼ cup light brown sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
For the brown sugar sauce…
1 cup light brown sugar
¼ cup honey
3 tablespoons water
⅛ teaspoon of vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons diced unsalted butter
Combine all the filling ingredients in a mixing bowl of a standing mixer, blending for about 5 minutes. Store in the fridge for at least a few hours before using.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees for the apples. Wash the apples, trim the bottom of each so it’s flat and remove the apple cores.
Roll two tablespoons of the pecan-oat mixture into a ball and place it on top of the apple. Avoid stuffing the apple.
Place the apples in a baking dish and fill the dish with ½ inch of water. Bake for 40 minutes. Keep an eye on the apples to make sure they don’t get too crisp. The apples should be fork tender but not mushy.
Combine all the sauce ingredients except the butter in a saucepan and bring to a boil, cooking for about two minutes. Remove from the heat, add the butter and stir until it’s well incorporated. Pour the sauce over the apples and serve warm. (Perhaps with some ice cream!)
November 11, Saint Martin of Tours
Saint Martin was a Roman soldier in the 300s. One day, he saw a beggar shivering in the cold, so he tore his military cloak in two and gave the man half. That night, Jesus Christ appeared to him in a dream wearing half the cloak and said, “Martin the catechumen hath clothed Me.” He eventually became a monk and continued to love and serve God.
Martlemas Martini
2 oz Grey Goose Vodka
1 dash dry vermouth
1 lemon twist
Pour ingredients into a shaker filled with ice and shake 40 times.
Strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon twist to represent Martin’s torn cloak.
