Food, Fasting, and Itinerant Nuns

Abstract

Spanish nuns who traveled to Mexico and Peru during the 17th and 18th centuries brought with them their pre-conceived notions on food and fasting. They firmly believed that they could keep up their prescribed regimen of fasting according to the strict Capuchin Rule. Their own descriptions of their travels, however, prove the contrary. Journeys that took them across the arid plains of the Iberian Peninsula, the high seas of the Atlantic Ocean and the towering peaks of the Andes, proved much more challenging than they had ever imagined. Little by little, itinerant nuns had to embrace the difficult rules of the road and accept the different foods placed in front of them. They also had to modify some of their spiritual regimes such as their devotion to Eucharistic piety. Based on archival research and first person narratives, this study will use the lens of liminality to explore food and fasting in the writings of these Spanish Capuchin nuns.