Give us this day our daily taste

O Lord,
refresh our sensibilities.
Give us this day our daily taste.
Restore to us soups that spoons will not sink in,
and sauces which are never the same twice.
Raise up among us stews with more gravy
than we have bread to blot it with,
and casseroles that put starch and substance
in our limp modernity.

Take away our fear of fat,
and make us glad of the oil
that ran upon Aaron’s beard.
Give us pasta with a hundred fillings,
and rice in a thousand variations.

Above all,
give us grace to live as true people—
to fast till we come to a refreshed sense
of what we have and then to dine gratefully
on all that comes to hand.

Drive far from us,
O Most Bountiful,
all creatures of air and darkness;
cast out the demons that possess us;
deliver us from the fear of calories
and the bondage of nutrition;
and set us free once more in our own land,
where we shall serve thee as thou hast blessed us—
with the dew of heaven,
the fatness of the earth,
and plenty of corn and wine.

Amen

Priest, theologian and writer Robert Farrar Capon died back in 2013, aged 87. This prayer is taken from his delightful book, The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection (New York: Doubleday, 1969).