Have you ever closed a deal, celebrated your marriage (or its anniversary), or simply spent time with a good friend -- without eating something together? Why do our teeth, gullet and stomach figure so prominently in who, how, where and with whom we are?
Speculations about the Kosher laws: would our rabbis be more successful in
getting their message across if they exchanged their black frocks for white lab
coats?
It would be absurd to think that G-d gave us the Torah as a sort of bandage for His mistakes. "Oops! I didn't mean to put those nasty animals there! People might eat them! What do I do now?"
"The world can live without wine, but it cannot live without water; the world
can live without peppers, but it cannot live without salt" and other sayings from the midrash and talmud on food and eating
The Kabbalists teach that nestled within every created thing is an
"utterance of G-d's mouth" -- the letters of Divine speech that are
the instrument of its creation (as described in the first chapter of Genesis)