Description
Book SynopsisThis book provides in-depth perspectives on communal food and dining practices. In doing so, it challenges less sustainable lifestyles that are encouraged by a social system based on unlimited economic growth.
In considering the diverse societal settings in which individuals and communities eat, the book offers opportunities to reflect on the concept of belongingness, or the lack of it, when eating. It examines what, how, and why we eat together and considers what the future of our food and eating may look like. A wide range of themes are explored, with examples from Finland, Algeria, Europe, and Asia drawing on topics such as and cases for interdisciplinary research, such as environmental impact, social inclusion, happiness, health, and well-being, to name a few of the areas where the importance of eating together is stressed across disciplines. The book explores the lived experience of diners and the contexts in which commensality takes place in the family circle and in comm
Trade Review
"Eating together, both with family and friends and with strangers, is surely one of the oldest customs we have -- a gateway to bonding family and community. Now universally less common as an everyday event, it remains nonetheless a focal point for casual social engagement. This book has much to tell us about the decline of family dinners in favour of fast food in front of the TV, as well as much to remind us about what we are missing."
-Professor Robin Dunbar – Experimental psychology, University of Oxford
“This volume does important work for the interdisciplinary field of food studies because it provides broader theoretical and empirical perspectives on conviviality, commensality, and the art of eating. The editors have gathered a set of thought-provoking case studies and theoretical reflections on the relationship between marketplace ideologies, social norms, and community and family life.”
-Professor Benedetta Cappellini – Durham University Business School
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Tamas Lestar
i. Eating together in the family circle (case studies)
1. TV or not TV? A comparison of children and young peoples’ experiences of conviviality in Spain and the UK.
Surinder Phull
2. Negotiating food, negotiating family well-being: eating together in Algerian modern families
Souad Birady and Hichem Sofiene Salaouatchi
3. Dining together with family and mental well-being of young people: A study conducted in four Asian countries
Seyedeh Khadijeh Taghizadeh, Syed Abidur Rahman & Behnaz Saboori
4. Swedengate – When commensality norms collide
Håkan Jönsson
ii. Eating together in communities (case studies)
5. Bringing the nation (back) together: The Big Jubilee Lunch in the UK (2022)
Malgorzata Radomska
6. Potluck in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Two auto-ethnographic accounts
Tamas Lestar & Jason Garcia Portilla
7. Eating together – staff members’ perceptions of a social lunch meal in kindergarten
Hege Wergedahl
8. Plant-Based lunch in school: Eating Together as a means to promote sustainable and healthy eating
Malliga Marimuthu
9. The influence of local gastronomy on tourist behavioural intentions: a case of Saharan cuisine
Ghidouche Faouzi, Nechoud Lamia & Ait-Yahia Ghidouche Kamila
iii. Theorising the present and future practice of eating together
10. Commensality and identification in a Christian context: stable and transient elements
Stephanos Avakian, Pavlos Stavrakakis
11. Being here, being there: eating and drinking together as a socially constructed issue
Hugues Séraphin, Shem Wambugu Maingi & Maximiliano Korstanje
12. The evolution in Nordic eating and commensality: a focus on solitary eating practices in Finland
Silvia Gaiani
13. The banquet in Western Hospitality: a descriptive reading of Culinary Tourism
Maximiliano Korstanje
14. Beyond conviviality: Facets of Eating Together
Nicklas Neuman & Håkan Jönsson
Conclusions
Tamas Lestar
