Learn How Puritans Ate Mindfully at Upcoming Newport Talk

NEWPORT, RI—The concept of eating mindfully is not something that just happened a few years ago in Oregon.

The earliest English settlers believed that every meal had symbolic meaning and spiritual power, even the humblest boiled pot of roots. Those meals were thanks to God and community and involved cooking techniques that linger today.

On April 7, Lori Stokes will be in Newport for a talk as part of the Newport Historical Society's ongoing Newport Easts initiative to explore the history of food.

"Food, Faith and Fellowship" is the title of the talk that Stokes will deliver at their 82 Touro Street resource center at 5:30 p.m.

"From the spirituality of food to the brass-tacks of cooking in a colonial kitchen, attendees can enter the world of 17th-century Puritan foodways and “sit down” at their tables for a lively conversation," a Newport Historical Society press release proclaimed.

Stokes, who earned her Ph.D. from Stony Brook University, studies the founding decades of the Massachusetts Bay Colony focusing on the period from 1630-80 when the forms of church and state were put in place that would shape Massachusetts and American history for centuries to come. Dr. Stokes is an editor for The Church Records Transcription Project, a digital history project of the Congregational Library & Archives in Boston led by respected Puritan scholar Dr. James F. Cooper.

General admission costs $5 per person, $1 for Newport Historical Society members and active duty military with ID. Please RSVP to Mat Delaire at 401-846-0813x110 or email mdelaire@newporthistory.org.