Tasteless Or Not? Restaurant Puts Communion Wafer On Burger

Kuma's Corner, a Chicago restaurant that's built a reputation with foodies for its venturesome dishes, "has cooked up a controversial burger of the month for October, garnishing it with an unconsecrated communion wafer and a red wine reduction sauce," The Associated Press says.

The burger is supposed to be in honor of a Swedish heavy metal band called Ghost. According to the AP, "members of the band dress in religious robes and wear skeleton face makeup."

Luke Tobias, Kuma's Corner director of operations, tells the AP that the restaurant doesn't wish to offend anyone. But Kuma's seems to know that was likely to happen. It says on its Facebook page that, "we think [the burger] is a fitting tribute to the supreme blasphemous activities carried out by the band itself."

Jeff Young, who blogs at Catholic Foodie, tells the Chicago Tribune that the burger "is a mockery of something that is holy."

As the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says, when the faithful take communion they are expressing their belief "that this small wafer of bread, the wine in this chalice are in reality the body and blood of Christ the Lord." Wafers distributed at communion, unlike those being served at Kuma's, have been consecrated — "the act by which, in the celebration of Holy Mass, the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ." Patheos.com has a round-up here of Eucharistic practices across Christian faiths.

The Tribune notes that "customers are free to ask for no wafer — or multiple wafers — with their meal." It costs $17. You can get fries, chips or a side salad with it, the Tribune adds. The 10-ounce patty, according to Kuma's, is also topped with "ghost chile aioli, slow braised goat shoulder [and] aged white cheddar cheese."

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