Where art formerly aspired to a certain metaphysical authority or ostension, still retained some memory of its descent from sacred practises, or from the passion for Truth, this has now been replaced by the abeisance to a scientistic truth or to a deliberate parody of truth gestures. Perhaps the culinary arts have come to partially fill the gap that remains. It turns out you can fill the God-shaped hole with a hamburger, but only if it is a very special, very gourmet hamburger. Is it too early for a philosophy of the modern food cult? Is there something more to it than conspicuous consumption and the precise marking of social distinctions? It is often scientistic, and is known to invoke cultural-historical and personal-psychological elements, but these belong to its apologia. Where the edge lies is perhaps where taste overlaps with ethics, where food represents a peculiarly secular form of communion, a materialist mass where the relationship with the other and with nature is celebrated through symbolic ingestion.