Jesus: Not just for Sunday brunch anymore!

[salvorhardin]

If you're looking for a new low-fat, low-sugar, low-salt snack, why not consider Remnants of Hosts? Yes, that's 'hosts' as in "Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate." These replica communion wafers have been a Quebec snack-time tradition, and a thorn in the side of conservative Catholic leaders, since the mid-1980s. Disrespectful, maybe, but apparently quite popular as the two companies producing these altar bread scraps churn out two million bags per year.

Original article in French: http://www.radio-canada.ca/actualite/v2/lepicerie/niveau2_5435.shtml
Crappy Google translation: http://goo.gl/IklmO

[dimbear]

1. The communion host is the last vestige of the Christian love feast, or agape.

That's what this leaves traditionalists.

[TalkingDog]

2. A) Not tasty. Unleavened bread, Yuck. B) I'm not religious, but find this distasteful

pardon the pun...

[oldhippydude]

3. did not expect unleavened bread to get. a rise from a talking dog

what pun?

[Goblinmonger]

4. They aren't consecrated hosts

so why do the Catholics have their undies in a bunch?

[salvorhardin]

5. It's not clear from the article

They quote Fracois Trudel, a sales manager at a company that produces actual communion wafers, who says, that some religious communities feel that Remnants of Hosts contributes to the eroding of respect for the Eucharist. Maybe they just feel that their religious tradition is being mocked, rather than the snack food being an outright sacrilege.

I'm not trying to justify it; I'm just trying to understand his thinking.

[BiggJawn]

6. Does PZ know about this?

Been a while since he's abused a Magic Cracker...

Durn thing's nothing but hardtack.

[longship]

7. PZ Myers might be interested

and Bill Donahue!

[salvorhardin]

8. I think I understand this now

I found this article which originally appeared in The Globe and Mail which explains, to me anyway, how this came about in Quebec:

"A handful of Quebec monasteries still produce hosts and sell the leftover unblessed bread. A visitor can gain entry past the thick stone walls of the Carmelite monastery in Montreal's Plateau Mont Royal district and, for $5, buy a plain brown bag of wafer bread from an elderly nun."
Link: http://www.dailygrail.com/blogs/Paul-Collins/2006/1/Communion-Wafers-sold-diet-snack-food-Quebeckers-find-nostalgia-Host-Piece

I bet this evolved from monasteries giving leftover unblessed bread to the poor. As Catholicism lost its hold on Quebec citizens, it was only natural for those monasteries to start selling it. Add in a dash of nostalgia, shifting health concerns, and good ol' capitalistic entrepreneurship and suddenly it becomes a snack food. Utterly fascinating.