Evolution of Social Ties around New Food Practices

The second phase of observations took place in the home, to collect data on the preparation of a meal, its progress and the tidying up that follows. During this phase, the objective was, in addition to obtaining additional information on the sequence of actions and the way they were carried out, to observe the interactions between the members of the household. All the members of the household had to be present during these observations. The observations lasted from two to five hours. If the observations of the shopping were only partially participative (the observer accompanied the person, but there was no real participation in it), the observations of the meals were participative, so that the observer was integrated as well as possible in the daily situation, and that it was as natural as possible.

To begin with, the results make it possible to distinguish two types of eating together : the “everyday” and the more “festive”, or at least between people who are not part of the same household. It is then interesting to question the extent to which these different forms of eating together can influence eating well. So-called “festive” conviviality (which implies that we do not eat only with members of our household) refers rather to exceptional moments of sharing, which are associated with the consumption of particular products (alcohol, desserts) and special organization (longer meal time, more complete meal structure with aperitif, starter, main course, cheese, dessert, etc.). On the host’s side, there are unspoken rules: the products to be favored are rather rich products and they must be provided in ample quantities. For the guests, one rule is that they must conform to the meal that is offered to them and that hunger must take a back seat in order to honor what has been prepared for them. Camille explains:

– So you can estimate your hunger level, but during meals you sometimes force yourself to sit at the table and say “I’d better not leave this”.

– No, we never get hungry, we put it in the fridge and we know we’ll eat it at any time, no, I never force myself, at home anyway [laughs].

– Do you force yourself when sitting at other people’s tables?

– Well, yes, if you have to.

– Why if you have to?

– Well, I don’t know the kitchen, there’s… I know that grandma serves you and if you don’t finish the plate she gets the impression that it’s not good, it’s very stupid, but you know that you have to finish; but it doesn’t happen to me often.

– You don’t want to offend?

– Yes [laughs], yes, I don’t want to offend grandma!

These results refer to the fact that, under such conditions, individuals are more likely to eat beyond their hunger and, what is more, eat products with high energy density.

In the context of daily eating together , the practices of the individuals present at the table are modified. Indeed, the rules integrated by the person in charge of the food, in the role of a good provider (Evans 2011), instead assume the provision of varied and balanced food, while taking care to ensure the pleasure of the people eating. Roxane explains:

– We rarely eat the same thing twice in a row, it happens but hey…

– Why?

– Well, because it’s true that at lunchtime… it’s true that we like eating in the evening.

– OK, you both feel like you eat fast at lunch so in the evening you don’t want to do that?

– Yes, that’s it: it’s a more quiet time.

Thus, the feeling of shared pleasure around a meal implies eating certain foods and avoiding others (e.g. leftovers). In particular, the results confirm that starting a household or having a child encourages the preparation of balanced meals.

In addition to these results, between an eating together practice that can be characterized as “festive” and another that is more “daily”, the results make it possible to distinguish households in which eating together is established/systematized/codified, whereas in others this practice is more flexible/random. This is notably the case of Amélie, who tries to maintain the family meal with her daughter, despite the fact that she has difficulty extracting her from her video games:

That’s the problem, she spends a lot of time playing video games, so it has a lot of influence on our eating habits because it’s often “come to the table, come to the table, come help me make food, save, come and cook dinner…!” So, in fact, I waste time asking her for help, so after a while I get tired of it, I leave what I’m doing, I give up, I make fries and ham, “come on, you’re eating, you have to go back to school”, so it has an influence.

For Noémie and her mother, on the other hand, the rules of the shared meal are established, knowing that “ every evening [they] eat together ”, and that they have even gradually established weekly rituals such as “ leftover meals ” during which they finish all the leftovers of the week, as well as “ junk food meals ”, during which they allow themselves to deviate from their respective diets.

In conclusion, the results allow us to account for the diversity of practices by distinguishing between eating together practices that can be described as “festive” or as “everyday”, and by distinguishing between systematized/anchored eating together practices and others that are more flexible/random .

The practices of eating together can be distinguished according to the degree of constraint they represent for individuals, and according to the centrality of food during the shared meal. We thus identify eating together on a day-to-day basis, with the members of the household, but which can be experienced as a constraint or as a source of frustration.

– She is absorbed by her video games, so it is very difficult to have habits, to stick to my eating habits and to impose them on my child because she is the child of divorce, there are habits that she has at her father’s house and those she doesn’t… that I find difficult afterwards when she comes back here to make her break the habit.

– But when she’s here, do you eat at the table?

– Well, I eat by myself, so that’s during the week when she goes to school, and on weekends we eat at the table (Amélie).

In this type of practice, consumers try to maintain eating together , either to follow nutritional recommendations or because (like Amélie) they see it as an opportunity to share a moment with their loved ones. For others, eating together on a day-to-day basis with household members can be synonymous with shared pleasure on a daily basis. In this case, it is generally a spontaneous and pleasant practice:

It is also when we eat almost directly after we’ve arrived home from work, we cook and sit at the table, so it is still the time when we tell each other about our day, we are both a little quiet and we do not want to be disturbed by our phones (Marie).

In a more festive setting, eating together can be experienced as a way to get together with friends/family for special events (birthdays, reunions), but without this moment being centered on the food or on the cooking and esthetics of the meal:

– If someone comes to eat at your house, what do you do?

– Well it’s… I have to force myself to anticipate I know that so-and-so is eating here so what am I going to prepare for them… and often I’ll make them the simplest things possible because I hate elaborate dishes, so often it’s going to be risotto with a salad as a starter.