Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Episode Title: Andrea Maraschi and Francesca Tosca, "Food, Heresies, and Magical Boundaries in the Middle Ages" (Amsterdam University Press, 2024)
Date: December 24, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode features authors Dr. Andrea Maraschi and Dr. Francesca Tosca in conversation about their recent book, "Food, Heresies, and Magical Boundaries in the Middle Ages." The discussion explores how food practices intersected with concepts of religious heresy, magic, boundaries of identity, and even the truly extraordinary, such as magical cannibalism or bread-based rituals, in medieval Europe. The scholars unpack the symbolic, theological, and practical stakes involved in what and how people ate, and how these mundane acts became crucial in defining religious and magical boundaries.

Guest Introductions and Genesis of the Book

[02:24 - 06:15]

• Dr. Francesca Tosca:

  • Teaches Italian literature in Bergamo, Italy, with a PhD in medieval religious history.
  • Specializes in Christian minorities and heresies, especially the Waldensians.
  • Interest in food emerged from details found in medieval sources on heretical groups.

• Dr. Andrea Maraschi:

  • Assistant professor of medieval history in Naples and teaches food anthropology in Bologna.
  • Met Francesca at a conference in Tours, France, over shared fascination for food and religious symbolism.
  • Noted rarity of food studies that examine magic, boundaries, and religious symbolism in medieval studies; most focus on trade or recipes.
  • Their collaboration began with an article on the bread and cheese ordeal, which evolved into the book.

Notable Quote [Andrea, 05:21]:
“There are lots of interesting studies concerning food history, but... it’s not very often that you come across somebody who has this very peculiar eye, very peculiar taste for unusual aspects like religious symbolism, like boundaries, like magic.”

Structuring the Study: Heresies and Magical Boundaries

[06:15 - 08:46]

• The book is split in two parts:
  1. Heresies and Internal Christian Boundaries (Francesca's main focus)
  2. Magical Boundaries, including external group boundaries (Andrea's main focus)
• Magic and religion are closely intertwined; boundaries are fluid and often overlap.
• Francesca focuses on intra-Christian boundaries; Andrea focuses on boundaries between Christians and other groups.

Food as Heretical Behavior: Augustine and Early Christian Practices

[08:46 - 11:39]

• Augustine’s Observations:
  • In De Haeresibus, he describes 88 heretical groups and their practices, including food behaviors:
    • Some sects only eat seeds, including human semen.
    • Total avoidance of animal products, with exception for fish in some cases.
    • Ritual alternatives to Eucharist (e.g., wine replaced by water, or with bread and cheese, or even with semen and menstrual blood).
    • Examples like the Ophites, who used a snake in their Eucharist; bread touched by the snake was considered consecrated.
• Food is used to draw identity lines:
  • Disagreement about what is clean or unclean to eat signifies belonging or heresy.

Notable Quote [Andrea, 12:24]:
“But we must always remember that people used to use food for very, very serious matters... in a time when identity means you are with us or you’re not with us.”

Food as a Boundary Between Christians and Others

[13:56 - 17:35]

• Case Study: Kumis (Fermented Mare’s Milk) among Mongols
  • William of Rubruk, a Flemish Franciscan, struggled to convert Mongols; they feared baptism would prevent them from drinking kumis, a key food also used in Mongol religious practices.
  • Kumis was viewed as idolatrous by Orthodox Christians due to its use in non-Christian rituals.
  • William explained Christian doctrine did not prohibit any food per se—a shift from Jewish dietary laws.

Notable Quote [Francesca, 16:44]:
“The commerce was also used by Mongol people in blessings, libations and offerings to traditional gods and to the dead. So for this reason, Orthodox Christians link the comas to idolatry and to food offered to idols.”

• Christian Doctrine Shift:
  • Andrea recounts the biblical episode of Peter’s vision in Acts, marking the shift from Jewish laws to Christian openness to all foods, but with new anxieties:
    • The danger was not impurity of food, but attitude (temperance vs. excess) and context (danger of idol-offered foods).

The Perpetual Anxiety of Purity and Danger

[17:41 - 21:19]

• Even with theoretical freedom, Christians grappled with concerns about contamination and demonic influence, especially when food could have been dedicated to other gods or used in pagan rituals.

Notable Quote [Andrea, 18:45]:
“The freedom that Christians had didn’t actually make their lives any easier, but in fact it made them quite harder because you didn’t have any specific indication... It was just about your judgment.”

What Constitutes Pagan or Dangerous Food? Context Above All

[23:17 - 32:17]

• Liturgical Food Rules:

  • The church was inflexible about Eucharistic foods: only red wine and wheat bread were valid.
  • Questions arose in Northern Europe about substituting locally available products (e.g., ale for wine, rye for wheat), which the church denied.

• Outside Liturgy:

  • Any food could be problematic based on context (how, when, with whom, and for what purpose).
  • Gathering herbs, for instance, might be innocuous or suspect; reciting Christian prayers made the act licit, but using non-Christian incantations rendered it suspect or even demonic.

• Banquets as Boundary Events:

  • Attitude during feasts was policed; temperance was prized, while excessive merriment—singing, dancing, drunkenness—was labeled "pagan."

Notable Quote [Andrea, 31:45]:
“Even the simplest of actions could become pretty dangerous... you have crossed a line.”

Umberto Eco Reference [32:32]: “If you remember, for example, Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, you can appreciate how having fun, how laugh, was definitely not appreciated by Christian authorities because they underscored the importance of humility and of continent, so to speak.”

Magical Cannibalism and Natural Magic

[34:16 - 46:08]

• Cannibalism:

  • A near-universal taboo in the West, but contextually permitted in extreme situations (sieges, natural magic).
  • Natural magic: Sometimes involved consumption of human or animal body parts for purported magical or medical benefits, based on the theory of sympathy and analogy (e.g., eating a lion’s heart for courage, human genitals for strength).
  • Both Christian and Arab sources from the Crusades describe combatants harvesting body parts for presumed magical or medicinal purposes.

• Learned vs. Popular Approaches:

  • Learned (scholarly) magic viewed human organs as powerful due to the human connection to the image of God, while everyday popular belief held cannibalism as a dire taboo.

Notable Quote [Andrea, 36:44]: “You would want to eat the heart of a lion in order to become as brave as a lion... But even more so, human body parts and organs were deemed very, very powerful because we were, you know, the image of God himself.”

• Documentation and Cross-Cultural Practices:
  • Medieval magical manuals (e.g., Gayat al Hakim, later known as Picatrix) describe the use of human body parts for remedies.
  • Parallel practices on both Christian and Muslim sides in the Crusades.

Bread as the Ultimate Ritual and Symbolic Food

[46:08 - 48:48]

• Bread’s Ritual Centrality:
  • Example of special "magical" bread: Bread made in Bethlehem on Christmas night from flour mixed with water from the "well of the star."
  • This bread was believed to ease childbirth pains, rich in symbolic meaning (the Bethlehem well, birth of Jesus, “Bread of Life,” Eucharist).

Notable Quote [Francesca, 47:46]: “The bread from the well of Bethlehem that takes away suffering is a ritual full of symbolic meaning.”

• Bread as Multipurpose Symbol:
  • Bethlehem = "house of bread" in Hebrew.
  • Bread repeatedly used in distinctive and boundary-marking rituals across Christian communities.

Concluding Reflections and What’s Next

[48:48 - 51:08]

• Andrea Maraschi:

  • Working on a book about "graphophagy"—the eating of written words and inscribed surfaces.

• Francesca Tosca:

  • Published a book on Waldo of Lyon and Francis of Assisi, exploring why one was labeled a heretic and one a saint.
  • Upcoming "Franciscan year" (2026) marking 800 years since Francis’s death.
  • Preparing an English version of a new history of the Waldensians, with Andrea contributing.

Memorable Quotes and Moments

• Andrea on Food as Identity (12:24): “People used to use food for very, very serious matters and to address very specific issues. And here we are talking about identity in a time when identity means you are with us or you're not with us."

• Francesca on Interreligious Boundaries (16:44): “Orthodox Christians link the comas to idolatry and to food offered to idols... because it was considered a form of idolatry and apostasy.”

• Andrea on Rule Fluidity (31:45): “Even the simplest of actions could become pretty dangerous... you have crossed a line.”

• Andrea on Magic and Cannibalism (36:44): “Even more so, human body parts and organisms and organs were deemed very, very powerful because we were, you know, the image of God himself.”

• Francesca on Bread’s Symbolism (47:46): “The bread from the well of Bethlehem that takes away suffering is a ritual full of symbolic meaning."

Timestamps of Key Segments

• [02:24 - 06:15] — Author backgrounds and genesis of their collaboration
• [06:15 - 08:46] — How the book is structured; heresy and magic as overlapping boundaries
• [08:46 - 11:39] — Augustine’s descriptions of food-related heresies
• [13:56 - 17:35] — Food as a religious boundary: Kumis among Mongols
• [17:41 - 21:19] — The problem of Christian dietary “freedom” and its anxieties
• [23:17 - 32:17] — What makes food “pagan”? Contextuality of danger; banquets, herbs, liturgy
• [34:16 - 46:08] — Magical cannibalism, natural magic, and the limits of taboo
• [46:08 - 48:48] — Bread’s special role; example of magical bread ritual at Bethlehem
• [48:48 - 51:08] — What the authors are working on now

Closing Thoughts

The episode powerfully illustrates that food in the Middle Ages was never “just food”—it was a battleground for identity, a marker of boundaries, and sometimes a tool for the magical. What people ate, when, and how could define the line between orthodoxy, heresy, and even the threat of damnation or supernatural peril. From the mundane loaf of bread to extreme acts of cannibalism, the book offers a rich account of how food bound together (and sometimes tore apart) medieval communities.