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"A Trojan Feast"! Ask Joshua Cutchin


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Gene Steinberg

Gene Steinberg

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On Thursday, December 3, at Noon Eastern time, we'll be recording an episode with Joshua Cutchin, author of "A Trojan Feast: The Food and Drink Offerings of Aliens, Faeries, and Sasquatch.

Says the publisher:

YOU’VE BEEN WARNED

Accept food from faeries, and you’ll never escape their realm, according to European folklore. Accept food from Sasquatch and you will forever be trapped in the spirit world, according to indigenous North American tales. And today, abductees—at least those who have returned—often report being offered strange beverages from their captors. Are these similarities mere coincidence, or is something more at play?

In this outstanding example of scholarship on the unknown, Joshua Cutchin has created the world’s first survey and analysis of the food and drink offered by aliens, faeries, and Sasquatch. The offerings are often not what they appear to be: some liquids have healing or aphrodisiac qualities, some foods expand awareness, and there are ointments that reveal an invisible world.

Through his playful explorations of every possibility—from the outer regions of space to the inner sanctum of the human mind—A TROJAN FEAST offers new insight into our relationship with these strange creatures of the outer edge.
 
This is a fascination aspect to fairy-lore and many have suggested that food appears more often than we may realise when in the grip of an 'Oz factor' as Jenny Randles put it.

The advice is always the same: If you have been spirited away by aliens or have encountered the fairies, politely decline if they offer you anything to eat! Of course, someone may very well wish to stay in a magical place and be happy to eat? I mean I never got the impression eating meant sudden death or anything horrible, just that you cannot return to the 'normal' world if you do. I'll be eager to hear what Joshua can add to the few types of circumstances of this that I am already aware of . Makings of a great show and certainly new ground for the Paracast.
 
He also runs a pretty cool Fortean blog and is tight with RPJ it seems.

I actually had a senior minute here because I could have sworn he was on and you guys read my question but I now realize it was during an appearance by Micah after he recently hosted Joshua on the Gralien Report
 
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In your book you highlight the notion that the "alien" food and drink are often prepared for us as if this is a mythic offering of ambrosia from the gods - something that will change us or return us back home. What are your thoughts on cases that break such patterns such as the Emilcin 1978 Polish abduction case where the little green men in divers' outfits offer Jan Wolski some icicle shaped crumbly food that they are eating but that he rejects? Have you other examples where foodstuffs are shared between craft occupant and abductee?
 
Dear Gene and Chris, please could you ask Mr Cutchin: if he thinks there is any connection between the food offered by paranormal creatures/beings to people, and the food that people offer to gods, spirits or paranormal creatures?

For example it is traditional to leave food for Santa clause (and his Reindeer) but I suspect this is based on a far more ancient custom.

I understand in some cultures and or religions food is divided and a portion offered to the spirits or ancestors, and in some cases people are buried with food for the journey to the "afterlife".

My personal favourite example is the legend of the Lambton Worm where it is said that: people filled cattle troughs with milk for the worm to drink so that it would not eat people.

I am really exited about this episode and can't wait to hear it.
 
If people eat the food offered to them in anomalous situations what do they say it tastes like? Does the taste match the food or drink they believe they've consumed?

Is there a correlation between food being offered and it's availability at the time? Are these reports more common among people or historical eras where food was either hard to come by or the product of a precarious agricultural system that was often prone to failure? Now that, in modern Western countries at least, starvation and malnutrition are rare events, do we see a decrease in these type of reports?

European folk tales often have plots that turn on food events, for example Goldilocks and porridge, Hansel and Gretel and the house built of gingerbread, Snow White's apple etc. To what extent do these fictional stories lay down templates for people who report contact with other-worldly beings? Also have you looked to see how, if at all, this body of work fits with your theories regarding the connections between the Sattvic diet and offered food and other conclusions drawn?

The Catholic mass has at its heart a food and drink offering, which the faithful believe, is a literal consumption of the body and blood of Christ. Can we draw parallels between this belief and the reports you've studied? Do we, for example, see more food offerings in Catholic countries or amongst those of the Catholic faith?

It often seems that all we have in the study of anomalous research are stories. Stories which we may, or may not, believe have a factual basis to them but stories nonetheless. As such we should look at conducting research in this field not just as a scientific endeavour but also as a type of literary criticism. If my understanding of your work is correct, your search for a motif and an attempt to decipher it matches this literary criticism approach. We constantly hear, often incorrectly, researchers in this field making claims of their scientific credentials, as a musician what do you think that the arts, and the study of them, can bring to our understanding of strange events?
 
In fae folklore it was said if you accepted their food or drink it was said you were doomed to stay there forever ( though I'm not so sure that was the intent as in the stories I read you were pretty much kept against your will until such time that you were no longer needed.) Do you think there is any intent to offerings made to humans in our realm as per the various accounts, to me it sort of sounds like a cultural imposition that we put upon them as it was expected at that time as you don't here much about it nowadays.

What is your take on the supposed Henry Hudson encounter with the pig eyed gnomes and the transformation of his men after they consumed some drink? Have you ever come across another account with similar results?
 
Have you uncovered any links between the Garden of Eden/Tree of Knowledge story and these UFO/Fairy accounts? I find it odd that so many supernatural beings are concerned with consuming (or NOT consuming) particular things. If I recall correctly, Adam & Eve were offered a plant that would change them forever, and make a return to their prior lives (and location) impossible.
 
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