This vintage set of burlap bag of food and a container from 80’s is part of a Nativity set/ accessories and is new in package
According to Barbara Walker, in The Women's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects, containers are objects that are "ordinary for the most part, yet treated as sacred by some groups of people at some times. Many are household items somehow associated with ancient religious symbolism and used…in a way that has been called "living in a sacred manner".
A symbol is an object, image, or action that is conventionally understood to represent something else. Food is particularly powerful as a symbol because it is so deeply embedded in everyday as well as celebratory life, and can therefore be read in many ways. Because it fulfills physical as well as emotional and psychological needs, it may be intentionally utilized as a symbol in some instances but not in others. And because food engages all the senses, it tends to evoke strong sensory and emotive as well as cognitive associations. This range of association adds to the potential symbolic power of food.
In the original sense of the making of these objects, particularly the bag of food, the purpose may have been of gift-giving to the birth of the baby Jesus or for survival. There are many meanings for food.