Evolution of Social Ties around New Food Practices. Группа авторов

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      Introduction Eating Together, What Are We Talking About? Social Evolution of Today’s Food…

       Gilles SÉRÉ DE LANAUZE

       MRM Laboratory, University of Montpellier, France

Can we still eat together? The question posed by this book may come as a surprise, especially in France, where the food model is still overwhelmingly based on a traditional organization of three daily meals, as well as on sharing meals with other diners, at 84% for dinner and 75% for lunch. However, while Rozin (1994) has shown that in the imagination of individuals, eating means sharing with others, around a table; this seems more difficult today, and we observe that for the last 20 years, the number of people eating alone is increasing, as well as the number of people eating outside the home¹. Sharing the same meal around a table is becoming complex because of distance and the different agendas, concerns and paces of life of people who are close. Societal developments such as the rise of individualism, the break-up of families, or nomadism generated by the constraints of active life, weaken the traditional links that used to be formed around meals. Several ways of not “eating together” are thus revealed: eating alone of course, as well as not eating the same thing, not eating in the same place, eating within a different and chosen community. Thus, beyond the fact that we increasingly eat alone, many other fault lines seem to appear in the practices and social perimeters of food consumption. At the same time, other links are being re-formed within new communities of practice or belief, and the implementation of the shared meal depends on new forms of daily organization. And if we do not eat together as much as we used to, we may eat more connected to others, and with more conviction.

      Sharing the same meal around a table also becomes complicated when food choices tend to be individualized. Exclusionary diets (gluten-free, lactose-free, meat-free, etc.) are multiplying. The development of intolerances and allergies to certain food products leads to a departure from the traditional patterns of gastronomy and conviviality. At the same time, growing concerns for health and the environment are generating new practices, new product offerings and new forms of market segmentation. Some practices are even more committed, such as veganism which, beyond the refusal of any consumption involving animal exploitation, often takes a stance of both societal disruption and proselytism. Thus, multiple factors are likely to generate differences, antagonisms or frictions in the relations and practices related to food. The development of particular diets, motivated by health, environmental or ethical concerns or imperatives, seems to generate new barriers to eating together.

      Religious prohibitions are also at the origin of withdrawal into particular ethnic or community regimes. We also note that the religious issue has led to the appearance of a wide range of new products on the market (numerous halal and kosher product lines), which find their clientele in the corresponding community, as well as among other consumer segments in accordance with trends observed towards ethnic or cross-cultural products.

These changes in terms of relationships with others, conviviality and sharing go beyond the simple perimeter of the meals themselves and also characterize the practices associated both upstream and downstream from the meal. Upstream, we can mention shared supplies, either between consumers (grouped purchases) or between consumers and producers (AMAP², organic baskets), or the development of “cooking together” practices (courses, tastings, tutorials, reality shows, chefs’ blogs). Downstream, we can observe the growing inclusion of gastronomy and commensality within other forms of sharing: meals are then offered not in classic and commercial places like restaurants, but in new alternative, tourist, campaigner or artistic contexts that rely on food to enrich other types of experiences. Commensality is then a pretext for sharing new experiences, emotions or convictions that go beyond their sole nutritional and hedonic objectives.

      Sharing values rather than a meal: in an often anxiety-provoking context, consumers are looking for answers to the many economic, social, health and environmental issues linked to our consumption patterns; as a consequence, they are questioning the models of food consumption in order to take greater responsibility. Food takes on the dimension of supporting values. Societal or environmental convictions lead to the critique of certain categories of products deemed harmful because of their ecological footprint or their consequences on public health (meat, processed products, etc.). This favors particular modes of consumption, increased social pressure on what is good or bad to consume and retreating into communities of practice around new principles (organic consumption, local consumption, direct distribution, responsible consumption, etc.). Are these communities the new form of socialization around food that, in many cases, would replace the traditional family and social sharing?