Religion in the Kitchen

Elizabeth Perez is Associate Professor of Religion at the University of California Santa Barbara. She is author of Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, & the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions (New York University Press, 2016; winner of the 2017 Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion, presented by the Society for the Anthropology of Religion section of the American Anthropological Association).

"Religion in the Kitchenis the product of Pe´rez longstanding interest in the religious phenomena of Black Atlantic communities, and builds on a number of prior projects, revisiting, revising, and creating a thoughtful and fascinating ethnographic text . . . [W]ill fascinate both the academic community and the interested layperson." (Journal of Religious History) "[A] major contribution to the scholarship of Black Atlantic traditions, bringing much needed attention to cooking, talking, and the women and gay men who do both . . . With an accessible introduction and opening chapters, Pe´rezs careful, erudite analysis offers methodological direction and a theoretical vocabulary for all scholars interested in the intersection of everyday practice with religious subject formation." (Nova Religio) "[W]ell crafted, theoretically engaging, and insightful . . . Pérez adroitly maps those interstitial spaces often historically relegated solely to women and their labor. This book provides a rare view into the liminal space of the Lucumí cloister and the coded dialogues therein . . . By queering her analysis inReligion in the Kitchen, Pérez substantively and subtly illuminates the temple-house communitys cohesion across its various subject positions . . . The role and signification of who cooks, what they cook, for whom they are cooking, who gets to eat and why suddenly opens up new avenues for inquiry and analysis under Pérezs gaze." (Food, Culture & Society) "Chapter three is my favorite in the book . . . a prime example of Geertzs model of thick description as applied to religion and food. Readers will no doubt find themselves comparing Pe´rezs work to that of Karen McCarthy Brown (2001) inMama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn, which has become a classic in the field. Pe´rezs questions and conclusions are different than Browns, but I suspect that likeMama Lola, Pe´rezs Religion in the Kitchen will become a go-to book for the study of Afro-Caribbean traditions in the USA." (Material Religion) "With clear description and sharp analysis Pérez highlights ways in which cookingand its related activities such as conversationis the stuff of religious engagement and a symbol of connection between humanity and divinity. Anyone concerned with better understanding how ordinary spaces and practices take on religious significance will value this book." - Anthony Pinn, Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religion, Rice University "A deeply researched, contextually rich and ambitious intervention into the literature on Black Atlantic religions. While most scholars of Santería and other Black Atlantic traditions have focused on initiation as the paradigmatic site where religious values are inculcated and religious subjects are `reborn, Pérez directs her attention to a more prosaicand unjustly overlookedsetting: the kitchen. By cooking for the orishas, Pérez asserts, participants are themselves being cooked; that is, they are being socialized into the complex world of Santería aesthetics and ethics. In focusing on the informal spaces and behind-the-scenes work so fundamental to the molding of religious subjects and the perpetuation of Black Atlantic religious forms, Pérez opens up a whole world. Compelling as an ethnography and theoretically astute, Religion in the Kitchenoffers a thought-provoking analysis of how religious norms are internalized and reproduced. A stunning achievement." - Kelly E. Hayes, author of Holy Harlots: Femininity, Sexuality and Black Magic in Brazil "Religion in the Kitchenby Elizabeth Pérez is a stunning achievement, both for its methodological sophistication and its timely focus . . . Situating her analysis within multiple academic venues, including anthropology, history, and the arts, Pérez engages a methodological turn that is of inestimable value to scholars of religion. How fitting that a text about cooking and conversation sets a special place at the table for Africana traditions . . .Religion in the Kitchenis hearty and satisfying fare, served with academic rigor, the 'special sauce' for acuity and balance in the study of religion." (Journal of the American Academy of Religion) "Here is a new approach to the syncretic black religions of the Atlantic world. Though Pérez's research site was a Cuban Lucumi (also called Santería) temple in Chicago, her insights and conclusions apply far beyond . . . Research on the aesthetics of everyday life is burgeoning everywhere and not only in philosophy, as this fine example demonstrates." (Choice) "Pérez's reorientation of seemingly mundane gastronomical activities towardreligiousfunctionality in an effort to present a different approach to the study of Black Atlanticreligionmakes this book invaluable to scholars and students interested in African diasporicreligionsand anthropology/history ofreligion." (Religious Studies Review) "A pleasure to read. The lucid writing … illuminates the spaces in the back of the house, where so much of the crucial work of making food and making family takes place." - New West Indian Guide