{"id":431,"date":"2006-12-26T20:47:08","date_gmt":"2006-12-27T01:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/2006\/12\/26\/miraculous-food\/"},"modified":"2011-08-11T00:27:46","modified_gmt":"2011-08-11T04:27:46","slug":"miraculous-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/2006\/12\/26\/miraculous-food\/","title":{"rendered":"Miraculous food"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--CusAds--><p>It&#8217;s amazing what you&#8217;ll find if you stare at your food long enough.  Bodega Chocolates in Fountain Valley California says it found a 2 1\/2 inch piece of chocolate that resembles the virgin Mary.  A worker noticed the glob of chocolate in a mixing vat and thought that it had an amazing likeness to the Virgin Mary standing in prayer. &#8220;It&#8217;s absolutely a miracle,&#8221; said Jacinto Santacruz, 26, a Roman Catholic who in August discovered the 2 \u00c2\u00bd-inch-tall apparition at Bodega Chocolates.<\/p>\n<div class=\"b1291d92551e5c93995fce7897ccfc30\" data-index=\"2\" style=\"float: right; margin:10px 0 10px 10px;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-3375789278566919\";\r\n\/* OddPlanet_300x250_inpost *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"3290981241\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n<p>This isn&#8217;t the first time that we&#8217;ve heard of religious images appearing in food or other items, for example they&#8217;ve been seen in bricks, logs, the gritty underpass of a Chicago expressway, a Tennessee coffee shop called Bongo Java and, last month, a tiny gold nugget found in the Arizona desert.<\/p>\n<p>In 1977, a woman making burritos in Lake Arthur, N.M., saw the face of Jesus in the pattern of skillet burns on a tortilla. She was so enthralled by the tortilla that she built a shrine to house the Jesus tortilla, which was blessed by a priest, and thousands of people from across the country came to gaze and pray for its divine assistance in healing their ailments.<\/p>\n<p>Muslims have also found Arabic script for Allah or Muhammad on fish scales, chicken eggs, lambs and beans.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists call this phenomenon Pareidolia, the perception of patterns where none is intended.  One professor who has studied this phenomenon says that it&#8217;s really just how humans are hard wired &#8211; &#8220;It&#8217;s really part of our basic perceptual and cognitive situation,&#8221; said Guthrie, a cultural anthropologist, retired Fordham University professor and author of &#8220;Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It has to do with all kinds of misapprehensions that there is something humanlike in one&#8217;s environment, when really there&#8217;s not.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>At the root of the phenomenon, he said, is the survival instinct.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a built-in perceptual strategy,&#8221; Guthrie said. &#8220;In a situation of uncertainty, we guess that something is caused by the most important possibility.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hence, if you&#8217;re alone and hear a strange sound, even on a gusty night, you&#8217;re more likely to ask, &#8220;Who&#8217;s there?&#8221; than think it&#8217;s the wind. And if you happen to be religious, Guthrie said, your answer to &#8220;Who&#8217;s there?&#8221; may well be God. More specifically, Jesus in a fried tortilla.<\/p><!--CusAds-->\n<p>The feelings generated by these perceptions can be powerful.<\/p>\n<p>At Bodega Chocolates, Santacruz and her co-workers placed the chocolate Madonna in a small plastic case, and as news spread, crowds of the curious and devout began making pilgrimages to the shop, where they prayed, crossed themselves and knelt.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s really emotional,&#8221; Santacruz said. &#8220;I can&#8217;t describe the feeling; the emotions make me cry.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Other alleged miracles have proved profitable: A 10-year-old grilled-cheese sandwich with a pattern resembling the Virgin Mary sold on eBay in 2004 for $28,000; a pretzel in the shape of Mary cradling the infant Jesus fetched $10,600; and a water-stained piece of plaster cut from a shower wall bearing what looked like the face of Jesus brought in nearly $2,000.<\/p>\n<p>Some manifestations get worldwide attention.<\/p>\n<p>In 1996, the owner of Bongo Java in Nashville, Tenn., said he discovered a cinnamon bun bearing the likeness of Mother Teresa in profile.<\/p>\n<p>Dubbed &#8220;the miracle nun bun,&#8221; the pastry got so much notice worldwide that he parlayed it into a commercial venture, selling nun-bun T-shirts and coffee mugs on the Internet.<\/p>\n<p>The items were taken off the market when Mother Teresa complained, but he refused to stop exhibiting the renowned sweet, even after she died.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually the bun was stolen during a 2005 Christmas Day break-in.<\/p>\n<p>But it was the famous Jesus tortilla of New Mexico that some believe set the world standard for claims of miracle sightings.<\/p>\n<p>After discovering it while making her husband&#8217;s breakfast, Maria Rubio mounted a display of the tortilla.<\/p>\n<p>She quit her job as a maid to become full-time attendant to the shrine of the tortilla constructed in her home. And although a few competing miracle tortillas cropped up in subsequent years, none attracted anything approaching the fan base ascribed to the original.<\/p>\n<p>Religious traditions are filled with tales of apparitions.<\/p>\n<p>On Dec. 12, Roman Catholics celebrate the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, who they believe was first seen by a Mexican Indian named Juan Diego in 1531.<\/p>\n<p>Similar apparitions of a gentle woman speaking soothing words have been noted worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>Church officials say they don&#8217;t encourage such interpretations.<\/p>\n<!--CusAds--><p>&#8220;The church encourages Christians to see the face of Christ in the homeless, the poor, the destitute and the immigrant, not in a plate of pasta,&#8221; said Tod Tamberg, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<div class=\"b1291d92551e5c93995fce7897ccfc30\" data-index=\"9\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<br\/>\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-3375789278566919\";\r\n\/* OddPlanet_300x250_underpost *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"8431788844\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br\/>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<br\/>\r\n\r\n<?php if ( is_search() || is_single() || is_page() || is_paged() || is_category() || is_archive() ) { ?>\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n  ( function() {\r\n    if (window.CHITIKA === undefined) { window.CHITIKA = { 'units' : [] }; };\r\n    var unit = {\"calltype\":\"async[2]\",\"publisher\":\"dragonden\",\"width\":550,\"height\":250,\"sid\":\"oddplanet\",\"color_site_link\":\"cf4343\",\"color_text\":\"333333\"};\r\n    var placement_id = window.CHITIKA.units.length;\r\n    window.CHITIKA.units.push(unit);\r\n    document.write('<div id=\"chitikaAdBlock-' + placement_id + '\"><\/div>');\r\n}());\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"\/\/cdn.chitika.net\/getads.js\" async><\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<?php } ?>\r\n<br\/>\r\n<br\/>\n<\/div>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s amazing what you&#8217;ll find if you stare at your food long enough. Bodega Chocolates in Fountain Valley California says it found a 2 1\/2 inch piece of chocolate that resembles the virgin Mary. A worker noticed the glob of chocolate in a mixing vat and thought that it had an amazing likeness to the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[63,41,25,61],"tags":[576,580,597,687,281,792,91,1546,467,151,1547,103,79,208,1548,187,88,80,1549,156,157,749,158],"class_list":{"0":"post-431","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-dumb-luck","7":"category-dumb-people","8":"category-recreation","9":"category-strange-happenings","10":"tag-arizona","11":"tag-chicago","12":"tag-chocolate","13":"tag-christmas","14":"tag-coffee","15":"tag-famous","16":"tag-fish","17":"tag-images-in-food","18":"tag-india","19":"tag-internet","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-odd","23":"tag-people","24":"tag-religious-icons","25":"tag-stole","26":"tag-stolen","27":"tag-strange","28":"tag-virgin-mary-in-chocolate","29":"tag-water","30":"tag-woman","31":"tag-world","32":"tag-worldwide","33":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}