Strangers in a Foreign Land: Food’s Prophetic Role in Identity-formation, Memory, Meaning-Making, and Hope in Ancient and Contemporary Contexts
Victoria Yunez Behm, MS, MTS, Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Through stories, Biblical exegesis, and recipes, I investigate the prophetic role of food and eating in identity-formation, memory, meaning-making, and hope in communities that have experienced captivity, exile, or expatriation and are no longer residing on their ancestral or native lands or in their cultural or religious communities. I draw on Portier-Young’s description of prophecy as embodied[1], and explore the concept of prophetic mediation through two scriptural loci in Exodus: the institution of Passover (Exod 12:1-28) and the subsequent wilderness wandering and provision of manna and quail (Exod 16). I examine how food functions as a proxy for the prophet in these texts, employed as a means of mediating, affirming, and challenging explicit and implicit aspects of worldview and identity through cycles of preparation, protestation, and reparation, each of which will be explored briefly. These events also reflect persistent celebrations of cultural identity, memory, meaning, and hope for the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob today.

Contemporary examples of food’s role in mediating identity, memory, and meaning will be offered, drawing on the presenter’s autoethnography and qualitative interviews conducted with individuals who have experienced translocation, whether by choice or by compulsion.