Clare of Assisi at the table

At San Damiano, the meal is an act of humility taken in silence, listened to like a prayer while a sister reads Scripture. It revolves around *pane* (barley or bran bread), *companatico* (the little that "accompanies the bread": boiled herbs, legumes, a drizzle of oil), and water or heavily diluted wine. There is no service in successive courses: everything fits in a shared earthenware bowl, and sobriety itself is the rule that Clare was the first woman to have approved by Rome.

Barley, the poor man's grain despised by the rich who prefer wheat, is the thread running through this entire table: in bread, porridge, or decoction water. For Clare, choosing barley is not a constraint but a spiritual choice — embracing the poverty of Christ even in the grain that is ground.