[1] From the thousands of people who tune
their televisions to watch Emeril "Bam!" their
much loved comfort foods, to the millions who log onto the
Internet to download their favorite recipes or flip to the
latest restaurant review in the newspaper, there is no denying
that Americans love food. We gather at picnics, meet for
coffee, enjoy an ice-cream cone after a softball game, and
assemble Sunday dinners together - all of which often connect
us with a religious community or church social event. Daniel
Sack, author of Whitebread Protestants, insists that
food and American religion are unavoidably coupled.
[2] Whitebread Protestants explores
the connectedness of the two. In a religiously pluralistic
society, anthropologists, historians, and sociologists frequently
have noted how ethnic foods bind social ties in immigrant
religious communities. Sack, however, has decided to emphasize
the mainstream - white, liberal Protestants. Those who can
identify with green Jell-o salad molds, fried chicken, and
potlucks will find Sack's book to be an easy, entertaining
read. Protestants who are vegetarians, people who are active
in social justice issues, and anyone following the latest
health food craze will also empathize with Sack's study.
However, even for those of us who are none of the above,
Whitebread Protestants offers a variety of perspectives
and methods for understanding American ingestion and churches,
spanning from food events to food ideology.
[3] Sack analyzes five major topics, beginning
with an exploration of the ritual of communion or Lord's
supper from the late 19th through the 20th
century. He is especially concerned with two major debates:
1) how Protestants replaced wine with grape juice, and 2)
how they replaced the single-serving chalice with individual
cups. His insights in this chapter are interesting, but
seemingly not connected with his later concentration on
the symbolic aspects of food. Perhaps Sack's discussion
would have benefited from detailing the differences of sacramental
symbolism and mystical notions of communion for the variant
Protestant denominations. Communion connotes starkly different
meanings for more liturgical traditions than for Baptists
or Methodists.
[4] The rest of the book concentrates
more on non-sacramental uses of food. Chapter two, "Social
Food: Potlucks and Coffee Houses," explores how food
events typically are the focal activity for churches as
well as a means for providing alternatives to secular entertainment.
The reader learns of the communal aspects of eating, from
the rich and lavish men's church dinners at the beginning
of the century to the contrasting contemporary youth group
pizza and soda parties. Although Sack makes it clear that
the food is not religious itself, he fails to mention how
such communal events are often conjoined with powerful spiritual
experiences. For instance, a church picnic held at a local
campground would most likely include an evening outdoor
worship service fraught with emotion under the expanse of
a starry sky, or a late-night youth pizza pig-out might
follow a heart-rending final night and altar-call at summer
Bible camp.
[5] Sack does associate feelings with
agency and asserts that because Protestants connect grace
with social responsibility to feed the hungry, clothe the
poor, and help the downtrodden, soup kitchens are essential
church outreach programs. He demonstrates how Protestants
have combined evangelism with meeting the basic needs of
people by tracing the development of soup kitchens. Sack's
ideas are synthesized from field visits to food pantries
and soup kitchens in Atlanta, and he provides a variety
of social-service models, while also explaining each organization's
goals and rating their effectiveness toward addressing the
causes of hunger. These organizations eventually become
institutionalized, thus losing their initial evangelistic
emphasis. Sack laments that several of these organizations
have failed to reevaluate their progress, and he implies
that the most useful soup kitchens are those that are not
overtly evangelistic, and those that provide holistic ministries.
[6] International food relief ministries
are more than meals served at soup kitchens. Protestants
have raised money for a plethora of hunger agencies. Sack's
insights into volunteers' motivations, Christian educational
material, ministry brochures, and litanies related to issues
of world hunger are insightful and creative. The reader,
as well as Sack, questions whether a child exposed to such
ideology holds the same belief as an adult - this inquiry
begs for more research. This chapter's focus on hunger politics,
however, was also the most tedious. The numerous agencies
mentioned and the acronyms used to describe them presented
pockets of convoluted and confusing discussion.
[7] Sack struggles to relate institutional
history to individual agency when describing hunger politics,
but he returns to personal involvement in the concluding
chapter when discussing the moral value of food for Protestants.
The reader learns of America's antebellum reformers warning
of the dangers of overindulging in meat and grease, and
readers might be surprised to learn that the contemporary
health food craze - advocating fruit, vegetables, and whole
grains - is nothing novel. Sack asserts that early connections
with temperance reform cannot be ignored. Moreover, throughout
the decades, reformers have advocated food must be pure
for the Christian body. For a more timely diet discussion,
Sack uses Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet
(1971). According to Sack, Lappe's book serves as the central
catalyst for Christians understanding and embracing vegetarianism.
[8] In sum, although Sack contends he
has organized the chapters thematically, at times, the prose
lacks connectedness and focus, but parts are extremely interesting
- posing more questions than answers. Perhaps Sack's analysis
could best be enhanced by expanding the diversity of Protestants
discussed (conservatives to liberals). How did small, rural
congregations feed the hungry in their community? Alternatively,
could the poor congregation ever identify with America's
overabundance? Finally, how did more theologically conservative
Protestant congregations address world hunger, vegetarianisms,
or the deal church cook, if at all?
[9] Nonetheless, Whitebread Protestants
is a general narrative appealing to historians, Protestants,
and foodies, which reminds us that the study of American
religion is more than intellectual history and theological
debates. It is about the bland, spicy, bitter, and sweet
aspects that tickle the senses of America's living religions.
Howell Williams, Florida State University
(Hlw02c@fsu.edu)
