ABSTRACT
This chapter is based on the view that religion is one of the most important manifestations of human culture. It also examines the multifarious relationships between religion and cuisine, followed by a synopsis of prescribed and proscribed foods and gastronomic practices among some of the world's main religions. It describes the ways in which service providers and tourism destinations are beginning to cater to the food-based religious requirements of the traveling public. Visual imagery embraces the gastronomic characteristics of an area's religious heritage and is a prominent part of the local tourismscape. Food and eating practices are laden with spiritual meaning, and religion is often at the cusp of emergent foodways and gastronomic adaptations. Finally, one of the biggest consumers of cultural heritage - tourism - is inseparable from religious food traditions. This is especially the case, as people from many walks of life have the means to travel outside their homelands or beyond their religiously bounded social domains.
