The demands of the Christian life have traditionally required some degree of reflection and consequent action fasting from food and abstinence from meat or alcohol.
While restraint for health and dietary programmes is on the rise, fasting for religious motives has declined greatly in Western society. Equally, compared to the lavish festal celebrations of the past, the luxurious excess of consumption has also wained in its extravagance. This book is about how Christians have negotiated the relationship between food, feasting and fasting throughout the ages the impressive, the excessive, and even the amusing ways.
