Food in Mary Rowlandsons The Sovereignty and Goodness of God Essay

Food in Mary Rowlandsons The sovereignty and Goodness of GodFood is a metier for life, a dynamic of life, and an expression of the whims, joys, terrors, and histories in life. Food, more than anything else, is life. - Anonymous Neither life nor culture can be sustained without food. On a very basic level, food is fundamentally essential for life, not simply to exist, but also to thrive. A means by which carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, nutrients, and calories are introduced into the body, food is a tool of survival. However, on a more abstract level, food is also fundamentally essential for culture by establishing its perimeters and dimensions and in shaping its authenticity and character. Food becomes the carbohydrates and calories that check any culture. Food offers a dynamic cross-section of mans tendencies. Nourishment, a basic biological need, argues anthropologist Sidney Mintz, becomes something else because we humans transform it symbolically into a sys tem of meaning for practically more than itself (7). By examining food consumption and preparation, much is discoverd regarding the intricacies of culture. The preparation and consumption of food in Puritan society are reflected in Mary Rowlandsons The Sovereignty and Goodness of God. Rowlandsons view of food and admissions of hunger in the infancy of her captivity cast a revealing light upon the roots of her conceptions and ideas about food and, more generally, about her cultures conceptions and ideas about food. As the conflict between her soul and her stomach raged over food, Rowlandsons attitudes toward the Native Americans preparation and consumption of food reflect the socialization of the Puritans to reckon that every meal ... ... Mary Caroline. The Days of the Pilgrim Fathers. Detroit Singing Tree Press, 1970. secondary source Geree, John. The Character of an Old English Puritan, or Non-Conformist. 17th Century Primary Source Documents <http//www.orst.edu/dept/ bi ography/primary17.htm Accessed 21 May 2001. primary source Goodwin, Lorinda B. R. An Archeology of Manners The Polite World of the Merchant Elite of Colonial Massachusettes. capital of Massachusetts Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 1999. secondary source Mintz, Sidney W. Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom Excursions into Eating, Culture, and the Past. Boston Beacon Press, 1996. secondary source Mizruchi, Susan L. The Place of Ritual in Our Time. American Literary History 12, no. 3 (2000) 467-492. secondary source Rowlandson, Mary. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God. Boston Bedford Books, 1997.