Food Stories: Bread, Religion, and Identity : An IPA study in the multi-cultural area of Brasov, Transylvania

Sammanfattning: The paper follows and compares the narratives around sacred bread in four religious communities within the multicultural Transylvanian area of Brasov: Orthodox Christianity, Lutheran Christianity, Romano-Catholic, and Judaic. Information regarding the practice of bread making during key religious celebrations was gathered via six semi-structured interviews and analysed by interpretative phenomenology analysis (IPA), thus providing a summary of what unites and what distinguishes the four religious communities and also indicating a few directions for the common ground in building an inclusive multi-narrative perspective.  The study approaches a field less scrutinized, that of comparative studies regarding similarities, differences, and influences between various religious communities in basic life situations – like food and symbolism associated with religious celebrations.