For all that we denigrate the magical beliefs connected with food in simpler societies, it should be remembered that some of us throw salt over a shoulder to ward off bad luck, or eat fish in the belief that it is superior brain food, or oysters with the hope of increasing sexual potency. All the major religions continue to attach symbolic meanings to food and drink (even though the Roman Catholic prohibition against eating meat on Friday has been lifted): the bread and wine of the Christian communion service, the taboo observed by Jews against mixing meat and dairy products at the same meal, and the reverence for the sacred cow in Hindu India. In the political sphere, injustice is dramatized by fasting, as practiced by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., among many others. And we continue to observe the rites of passage—birth, coming of age, marriage, and death—with food and drink.