WHEN I FINISHED reading Kendall Vanderslice’s By Bread Alone, I went into my kitchen and measured out flour, water, yeast, and salt. I kneaded the dough, let it rise and fall then rise again. Soon, three golden loaves were ready for me to bring to my pastor and his family. Bread connects us to each other and to Jesus. As Vanderslice details in her book, bread is central to the Christian story.
Vanderslice, who holds a master’s in gastronomy from Boston University and a master’s in theological studies from Duke Divinity School, is a professional baker and practical theologian. She seeks to create an eternal communion, much like the “taste of bread lingering on our tongues.”
“As soon as water hits flour, a series of transformations begins,” writes Vanderslice in the preface of By Bread Alone. With vulnerability and clarity, she goes on to describe many of her personal transformations. As a 5-year-old, Vanderslice stole the Communion bread at her Texas church; the elements beckoned to her in the middle of a sermon. That curiosity grew into a lifelong journey, leading her to create the “Edible Theology Project” — a place where people can gather around the table and share their own food stories to find delight, connection, and belonging. Throughout the book, Vanderslice opens up about her struggles with anxiety and disordered eating. She also turns outward, delving into the racial and theological history of bread. The liturgies, prayers, and recipes Vanderslice includes in By Bread Alone invite readers to bake, pray, and reflect on their own experiences with brokenness and the goodness of God.
By bringing together the Communion table and the kitchen table, Vanderslice creates a holy space. “Communion is the ongoing method of drawing near to God and growing in understanding of the Good promises of God,” she writes.
Vanderslice’s descriptions of bread are delightfully tactile: “Our knuckles scratched against the uneven surface of the wooden countertop as we stretched and folded the sticky mass,” she writes of her time in a campus kitchen while studying abroad in Tanzania. On that same trip, she baked cinnamon loaves in a wood-burning stove, wrapped them in cloth, and enjoyed them with salted butter on a humid evening spent in solitude.
Along with enticing me to try out a recipe of my own, Vanderslice cuts to the core of a deep, universal hunger — a hunger for restoration. Through the Communion meal, God “shapes us into a community that reflects the work God is doing in the world,” she writes. “It teaches us to care for one another and meet one another’s needs.”
Jesus meets us in our brokenness and longings and “exists with us in the form of bread, torn open and offered for our consumption in the Eucharist.” By Bread Alone reminds us that we can find God in the simplicity of bread — and at that same meal, we can find each other. Vanderslice turns our attention toward a hunger, yes, but also toward a grand Supper for all.
Olivia Bardo is a writer, artist, and baker from northern New Jersey and is a former editorial assistant for sojo.net.
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