Feeding the birds is also a form of prayer.
— Pope Pius XII, born in 1876
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Life & Arts
Why we break bread
The act of eating together is filled with symbolism, and offers the opportunity to build bridges
A couple of weeks ago, I was scheduled to meet a friend for dinner at a restaurant, when I decided to cook for us instead. It was during a really cold stretch of New York winter and there was no reason for anyone to be outside. The day before our dinner I made some focaccia dough and set it to rise overnight, then bought some fresh rosemary to go with it.
I don’t bake bread often but when I do, it’s about more than just the food. It’s an added layer of care towards what is already an intimate act: eating together. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about eating and relationships. How, when we consider who to eat with, so much of the act of it surpasses just the intake of food.
Recently, two photographs of people at a meal went viral. The first was a photograph of British Conservative MP Andrew Bridgenhaving a group dinner. Less than 24 hours after he posted it on Twitter, it had been viewed 5mn times. Many commenters were disgruntled about the lack of diversity: all 17 people at the dinner table were older white men. The second image was of a group of CEOs who had gathered in Munich to confer on the crisis in Ukraine: again, all older white men.
I imagine that part of the pushback to these images was based on how symbolic they appeared to be of issues of representation and justice in the wider world. Everyone seems to understand that who you eat with, who you share a table with, matters. It is not always just about consuming food. It is very often also about defining relationships: sharing and expanding them, or tightening and reinforcing them.
It is hard to find paintings that depicta diverse group of people eating together on equal footing. That’s part of what makes the 1876 Reconstruction era painting “The Watermelon Boys” by Winslow Homer such a fascinating work. It might seem at first glance to play into racial stereotypes of the time, and yet also complicates those stereotypes by depicting generally unaccepted relationships and hierarchies.
In the painting three boys are in an open field eating watermelon. Two of the boys are black and one is white. Eating watermelon was a common derogatory racial caricature of black people at the time. In showing black and white children eating together, the painting could be seen as subversive, defusing the caricature. For black and white people to eat together was an affront to racist power structures and segregation. But in addition to that, it is a black boy in the middle of the triangle the three figures form on the canvas. He is sitting on his knees, higher than the white boy and the other black boy lying on the grass. Only his facial features are clear, and we see him look behind him cautiously, as if prepared for danger. He is the only one alert and attentive to the world around him. The other two are oblivious as they chomp their watermelon.
It’s a complicated image and I find it both arresting and evocative. It tells a story about an important aspect of cultivating the intimacy of eating together: our sense of safety, not only with the company but also within the environment. The boys are in a peaceful pastoral setting. And yet there is a tangible sense of discomfort and worry from the little black boy. He is well aware of the danger of eating in mixed company and of being a young black boy in the middle of nowhere, without protection. It’s also telling how at ease the white boy is in his posture, with his schoolbooks beside him. Access to education, at home in the world, without any worry about the safety of his body or his life.
Eating together suggests a camaraderie and desire to know and be known. Yet, when the tables we sit at include those who are different from us, especially those who have historically been disempowered by society, we have to consider how any building of relationships or intimacy must include an awareness of the fuller narratives of everyone at the table. In the painting it’s about physical safety, but there are many ways that safety can remain in question, even when the setting appears peaceful and even idyllic. Does everyone feel safe enough to speak freely, to challenge or advocate as they wish? Are certain people expected to know their place, maintain unspoken boundaries, or to feel gratitude simply for being at the table?
In his 1898 work “The Shrew Katherina”, Edward Robert Hughes paints a young woman sitting by herself at an empty table in an ornate dining room. Dressed in a voluminous red dress that stands in fiery contrast to the stark white tablecloth, she stares pensively at the table. One hand cups her chin, a finger in her mouth. A plate is just beyond her reach on the table, and an empty glass sits in front of her beside a decanter of red wine. The title of the painting gives the story away as that of Katherine from Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. In the play, she endures an involuntary fast as her husband Petruchio makes up excuses for denying her food. It is all part of his secret effort to tame her strong-willed nature, to make her obedient and agreeable to him.
I was drawn to this painting because, with its subject so vibrantly at its centre, and in a posture of reflection rather than defeat, it doesn’t seem like a painting of a woman starved into submission. The plate looks like it might have food on it, and it is just an arm’s length away. It looks like she is trying to decide what to do next. Perhaps she’s choosing not to eat, a fast of choice to communicate something about her relationship with the imagined Petruchio, emphasising where the boundary line of influence is for ultimate control over her. But also maybe it’s a temporary abstinence, a way of seeking internal clarity about her situation and what to do next.
In many religious traditions, fasting, the choice not to eat for a time, is an act that symbolises the relationship between a person and the God they believe in, showing a level of sacrifice in order to gain clarity or mercy or wisdom from a deity. But it is also about considering one’s relationship to oneself, taking stock of one’s appetites, desires and disciplines, which can lead people to renewed perspective about what’s important, what requires their attention, and what they feel equipped to do.
Eating, this activity we do every day in order just to stay alive, is so rife with symbolism and metaphor, not only in how we relate to one another but also in how we understand the world and what is possible. The abstract work “Loaves and Fishes” (2015) is by 77-year-old Texan blues musician and artist Rock Romano. It is a canvas chock full of sharp lines and curved shapes, an eruption of colour and form that somehow seems to hold together as one cohesive piece.
The image references the New Testament tale of The Feeding of the 5,000. At the end of a long day of telling stories and teaching a crowd, Jesus asks his disciples to feed everyone who has gathered. But they complain that the crowd is too big. So Jesus asks them to bring whatever they have themselves, to him. In one version they only have five loaves and two fish. Jesus takes the food, says a blessing of thanks over it and then breaks the bread. He then gives the food back to his followers and tells them to divvy it up. Everyone had something to eat, and when everyone was full, there were still baskets of leftovers. It’s a story about several things, but primarily about believing in an economy of abundance instead of one of scarcity.
In its chaos of colour and form that takes up the entire canvas, Romano’s is a beautiful abstract image of abundance. We live in a world where, despite our resources, we live as though there is not enough for everyone. There never seems to be enough for everyone to eat, and it’s a struggle to make room at the table. But in this painting, one can easily imagine the portals that are flung wide open when a diversity of people can eat together in contexts where resources are blessed, shared and multiplied.
Email Enuma at enuma.okoro@ft.com