Article ID: CBB001450708

Shaping the Illness of Hunger: A Culinary Aesthetics of Food and Healing in Tibet (2010)

unapi

[Abstract This essay will consider the relationship between eating and maintaining health or curing illness, as seen in Tibetan pre-modern texts. In particular, it will focus on selected ritually enhanced food practices that are aimed at treating illness and improving one's psycho-physical health and power. It begins with a look at practices that model hunger as an illness for both humans and non-humans, observing a resulting blurring of boundaries between food and medicine. The essay proposes continuity along a range of culinary practices, focusing in particular on ritual cake (gtor ma) offerings and nectar (bdud rtsi) recipes involving creation of pills and healing foods. The essay posits a culinary aesthetics of healing and personal enhancement and introduces speculation about Tibetan understandings of food as medicine that may shape our understanding of the relationship between medical and religious thinking and practice in Tibet., AbstractThis essay will consider the relationship between eating and maintaining health or curing illness, as seen in Tibetan pre-modern texts. In particular, it will focus on selected ritually enhanced food practices that are aimed at treating illness and improving one's psycho-physical health and power. It begins with a look at practices that model hunger as an illness for both humans and non-humans, observing a resulting blurring of boundaries between food and medicine. The essay proposes continuity along a range of culinary practices, focusing in particular on ritual cake (gtor ma) offerings and nectar (bdud rtsi) recipes involving creation of pills and healing foods. The essay posits a culinary aesthetics of healing and personal enhancement and introduces speculation about Tibetan understandings of food as medicine that may shape our understanding of the relationship between medical and religious thinking and practice in Tibet.]

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Authors & Contributors
Schrempf, Mona
Garrett, Frances Mary
Craig, Sienna R.
Gray Tuttle
Zumthurm, Tizian
Karen Throsby
Concepts
Medicine and religion
Nutrition; dietetics
Buddhism
Medicine
Food and foods
East Asia, civilization and culture
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
17th century
Qing dynasty (China, 1644-1912)
Enlightenment
20th century, late
Places
Tibet
Europe
China
England
Gabon
United States
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