Arte y comida: Jewish and Christian use of food and art as sites of identity negotiation in medieval Spain

During the Middle Ages, Jews, Christians and Muslims coexisted (often uneasily) on the Iberian Peninsula. These three religious groups were in a constant process of defining and preserving their identities, which were often constructed in terms of the relationships with each other. In particular, Jews and Christians attempted to distance and validate their own beliefs and customs in relation to the other. I will answer the question of how this was done, using food practices (in particular, food avoidances) and artistic representation as major sites for the negotiation of identity.;Since both food and art were very public sensory aspects of medieval life, they served as ideal locations for Christians to explore and assert their identities vis-a-vis Jews. When we look at Medieval Christian society in Spain, it is often the case that Christian artistic representations of Jews and the Christian omnivorous relationship to food can tell us much more about Christians themselves than about the Jews to whom they refer. From the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries, Spanish Christendom was plagued by anxieties about the balance of power between the church and secular rulers, economic inequality, and multiple attempts at homogenizing Christian belief. These were in addition to outside pressures brought on by the Muslim invasion and Reconquest of Christian territories. It is no accident that violence against Spain's Jewish communities flourished during this same period. In theoretical terms, food and art became safe places for Christians to create cohesion within their own society.;We can read Christian anxiety through these pejorative representations of Jews and the concern with Jewish food prohibitions. In doing so, we can construct a narrative about Christian identity politics during this period. Christians attempted to keep the anxieties they felt about their own society at bay through these artistic representations and the foods they chose to eat. In this way, they could create a semblance of cohesion that did not exist in reality. By understanding how Jews and Christians constructed their own identities in this way, often with very obviously negative results, we gain better understanding about how this is done today, and can perhaps begin to deconstruct these identities based on negative associations. Finally, by acknowledging that these prejudices often tell us more about ourselves than they do about the subjects of our prejudices, we can better understand ourselves and hope to do away with these prejudices.