Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to analyze religious food prescriptions and avoidances, to show, through a cross-cultural and comparative approach, the inner reason underlying such a wide range of different biases and rules sedimented through millennia of religious practices. Since food also transmits meanings, any food performs a semiotic power and shows how religious identities are embedded in everyday life. As a result, "we are what we eat," not only organically but in terms of beliefs and representations. For these reasons, food often functions as an identity marker that traces invisible borders between an in-group of people sharing the same religious identity or background, and an out-group of people with different identities. Therefore, in acquiring personal or social identity inside a larger community, food plays a relevant part in linking cultivation, culture, and worship, which is why this project highlights the relationship between religious food prescriptions and identity. People connect to their religious group through food patterns, and religious rules concerning food are often used to retain cultic and cultural identity. ultuale e culturale.