Religions make a big deal of the afterlife but have you ever wondered what the food would be like? Surprisingly there's very little written about it.
Catering in the afterlife, a thread.
Catering in the afterlife, a thread.
First of all, let's figure out the numbers. It is estimated that 80 billion people have lived throughout history which means there's at least 70 billion people in the afterlife.
They're definitely not doing sit-down meals, it has to be a buffet.
They're definitely not doing sit-down meals, it has to be a buffet.
So let's figure out the logistics of feeding 70 billion people three meals a day. This will be the longest buffet queue ever. By the time you get there all the good stuff will be gone, and you would be left with some stale salad and the zucchini quiche nobody wanted.
What's worse is you will be stuck in a queue with total strangers that lived thousands of years ago and they want to tell you about how hard it was to build the pyramids or how they first planted potatoes. Your great story about the U2 concert will not interest them at all.
Now you got your tray and you're trying to find a place to sit. This is high school all over again on a mega scale. There's Alexander the Great, Bowie, Greta Garbo but you end up sitting next to a Neolithic group who complain that the onions aren't as good as they had them.
So what's the cutlery situation? Will they be using metal, in which case who's doing all the washing up? I bet you it's not the angels. Maybe there's a rota. Except these Vikings keep bullying you to do their washing for them.
Not to mention the family situation. Basically every ancestor you've ever had will be there but these are people you have little in common with. There's bronze age farmers, medieval blacksmiths, Ottoman shepherds, and they're like come sit with us, what, we're not good for you?
So you end up sitting with your great great great aunt who lived 10000 years ago and her family and she keeps telling you stories about how good the Mesolithic period was and keeps saying to everyone proudly 'this is my grandchild' while force feeding you raw meat chunks
If you're lucky one day you would be seated next to someone interesting like Omar Khayyam. And you would go 'let's grab a cup of coffee' and he's like 'what's that?' So you try to describe coffee but he loses interest quickly
Which takes us to the next point and the complex conceptual challenge at the heart of afterlife food studies: our food today would be unfamiliar to most of these people, the vast majority wouldn't know what a tomato is. So you can forget about pizza or ketchup.
So what food will they be serving? Will they be serving modern food which would be alien to the majority or ancient food which is frankly unappealing to us? Or would they serve food by era? Theologians have overlooked these important questions for centuries.
My esteemed colleague makes a good point, there will be a separate thread on catering contracts in the afterlife because that's a separate area of study
Incidentally this Persian miniature depicting heaven clearly supports the buffet theory 
Incidentally, there's a similar question about the dress code. Will everyone dress from their era or will there be a uniform? Or would everyone just adapt and you see Nebuchadnezzar walking around in jeans and Cleopatra in shorts? This is a thorny theological question
For those sceptics doubting that we will need food in the afterlife, I couldn't stop eating during the quarantine you think I'm going to spend an eternity without food?
Anyway, I hope I've given you enough to chew on and join me again tomorrow when we discuss the social etiquette for interacting with aliens.
