New Books Network Andrea Maraschi and Francesca Tasca, "Food, Heresies, and Magical Boundaries in the Middle Ages (Amsterdam UP, 2024)
Dec 24, 2025
Andrea Maraschi, a medieval historian and food studies expert, joins Francesca Tasca, a scholar of Christian heresies, to discuss their latest book. They reveal how food practices defined heretical identities and the role of food in magical rituals. The conversation delves into Augustine's views on food, cross-cultural tensions surrounding drinks like kumis, and the contrasting interpretations of Christian dietary freedom. They also explore taboo subjects like medieval cannibalism and the significance of Bethlehem's magical bread. Their insights intertwine food, identity, and spirituality in fascinating ways.
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Food Reveals Identity Boundaries
- Food history can reveal serious matters like identity, boundaries, and religious power, not just trade or recipes.
- Andrea Maraschi and Francesca Tasca found food studies expose how communities define who belongs and who is heretical.
Augustine's Food-Based Heresy Examples
- Augustine catalogued heretical groups and noted distinctive food practices used to mark belief differences.
- He described examples including Eucharists with bread and cheese, semen, menstrual blood, and even a snake consecrating bread.
Food As A Tool Of Religious Policing
- Christian authorities used food to demarcate insiders from outsiders and to police correct belief.
- What people ate or how they ate could mark them as orthodox or heretical across centuries.