ABSTRACT
In this final chapter, we will look at the fundamental role played by food in human development. We will look at how food was central to early medicine as a correction not only to repair physical health, but also to restore moral character. This role of food is largely overlooked today, because the medieval science to which it belongs faded in history. But this did not diminish the centrality of food in human development and understanding. For as the human science differentiated into what we now understand as biology, psychology, sociology and anthropology, and so on, food continued to play a central role in pursuits to understand what it means to be ‘human’. In this central role, food is of course never merely things on a plate. Indeed, the central foundation of this book is that food is never just ‘food’, but is always symbolic of other capabilities and capacities, depending on the lens used.
