As you might have read below, our first official dinner at the Hazon Food Conference of 08 was full of conversation starters, though we hardly needed them. The room was roaring with voices, and a few of them were mulling over some discussion questions provided by The Jew and The Carrot.  Like this guy below, pontificating on the symbolism of tangerines:

Find all the questions and another video below.  Diners only seemed to get to number one on our list – the first of which explains why I ate two jelly doughnuts tonight after dessert.  (I’m always looking for reasons to eat jelly doughnuts.)  Join the conversation, and let us know what you’ve got to say on these topics too.

1. Food symbols are big in Jewish tradition – lentils symbolize mourning, kugel symbolizes Shabbat, parsley symbolizes the spring. What foods have become symbolic in your life and family? What does food symbolism bring to the table?

2. Rabbi Ahai ben Yoshia says, “one who purchases grain in the market-to what may such a person be likened? To an infant whose mother has died…one who buys bread in the marketplace-to what may such a person be likened? It is as if he is dead and buried. But one who eats from his own (what he has grown himself) is like an infant raised at his mother’s breasts.”

What do you think this text is saying, and what might be some modern-day equivalents of these three categories in your own life?

3. Jewish people are historically connected (religiously and culturally) to that Land of Israel – but many of us live thousands of miles away. Do you feel tension between “eating local food,” “being Jewish,” and “being connected to Israel?” In other words, is it more important to you to eat something produced locally, or something produced in Israel? Why?