There has been much study of the psychology of food taboos. Perhaps the most startling theory is Freud s concerning the ban on eating the totem animal among primitive tribes. This, he suggested, was a memorial to the primeval sin of killing and eating the father. The totem animal came to represent the father, and so could not be killed and eaten, except once a year when it was killed and eaten ceremoniously.
Modern anthropology tends to stress the usefulness of food as a marker of social boundaries.
As the late Meyer Fortes said, it is not so much that food is good to eat as that it is good to forbid. Catholics, for example, could find a bond between each other and a mark of difference from Protestants by substituting fish for meat on Fridays. Freud s theory of the sacred meal may appear somewhat bizarre, but his concern with it was not misplaced. The sacred meal is of crucial importance in many religions, including the advanced ones. We are all familiar with Seder and Holy Communion.