Beyond the question, on a microscale, of the material needed to eat together, there is the question of the logistical feasibility of the meeting. This is a broader scale of the material environment, corresponding rather to the infrastructure. Everyday life is arranged in a given time and space, in which consumers carry out their practices. In this respect, eating together depends on the possibilities offered by the location of the place where people live, by the time it takes to travel from home to work, by the location of friends’ homes, by the time it takes to travel between the place where they do their evening activities (gym, music lessons, etc.) and their homes, etc. These arrangements offer more or less the same opportunities for the consumer to do their daily activities, but varying degrees of opportunity for individuals to share meals with members of their own household or with friends/family from outside the household. It is interesting to note that this logistical feasibility of eating together is tending to evolve, particularly with the emergence of practices such as remote commensality: the fact of sharing a meal through a video call, made possible by new technologies and mobile applications: “I often call a friend, I know that he is eating alone so we call each other and eat together [laughs]” (Camille). Note that Camille’s comments predate the Covid-19 pandemic. These practices, which do not limit eating together to physical encounters, probably flourished during (and perhaps since) the lockdowns that took place in France from March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In any case, it is essential to note that eating together depends largely on the material conditions that allow individuals to meet and organize the meal.
In addition to the tangible material elements that underlie eating together, skills are also involved in implementing practices of eating together. Having the skills to choose, buy, store and prepare products is a first set of skills, which are broader than just cooking a meal. More broadly, cooking products that are adapted to the people with whom we are eating to make sharing possible between the commensals can be an issue. This sharing supposes that individuals can be gathered around a dish that will be accepted and appreciated by all. This essentially refers to the knowledge and skills of the person in charge of the organization and preparation of the meal, which consists of the management of the event itself, as well as of the food preferences and particularities of the guests, as well as the management of the products:
From Monday to Saturday we eat together every evening, knowing that on Saturday there are two meals: at noon and in the evening, on Sunday at noon we eat with my grandmother, so there will be three of us at the table, and I will also adapt all the shopping etc. to Sunday, because my grandmother no longer has the same taste as we do, so she can’t stand certain foods, whereas we love them, well, I adapt to what she likes because she has to eat, and she is the one who needs to eat the most (Noémie).
Similarly, beyond a question of taste, skills are needed to take into account considerations related to the household economy, so that the products consumed when eating together are in line with the household budget, which must be able to “afford it”.
A second set of skills refers more to the skills and behaviors involved in eating. Respecting codes of good behavior during meals is culture-specific (e.g. eating with cutlery, waiting for commensals to finish the dish before moving on to dessert, etc.), and this set of skills is closely related to meanings, which is the third element that helps explain the emergence and maintenance of a practice according to Shove et al.’s (2012) theoretical framework.
Meanings can be thought of as the values necessary for a practice to emerge or be sustained. Thus, regarding eating together, we can assume that meanings are found in two aspects: 1) it is necessary for eating together to be part of the values of the individuals involved and 2) it is necessary for the values of the commensals to be reconcilable during a meal.
The first aspect assumes that mealtimes are maintained by individuals if they attribute a value to shared meals (or even a symbolism that can lead to ritualization). Without being exceptional or festive, daily family meals can have a central value in the life of a household, contributing to the maintenance of the practice of eating together:
I noticed that when [my boyfriend] wasn’t there, we weren’t together for a week or two, I ate less, so I think that there is a social side to it, we like to have a meal together in the evening, you know, so I think that this brings a bit of a rhythm in the sense that we will try to agree to eat together, if we can, we don’t do… it’s not independently each of us on their own and we eat together, we organize ourselves a bit to have a meal together… (Paola).
The second aspect related to meanings more specifically concerns the time of the meal, its feasibility and its good progress. Indeed, the good progress of a meal with several people is not defined by all individuals in the same way, and the feasibility of eating together depends on this agreement: for some, eating together begins in the kitchen:
– Do you cook for the others every day?
– Yes, every day and we cook a little together with my roommate because she loves to cook, so we usually start with a base of foods that we want to eat and then we assemble a lot of things, one idea and then the other, and it creates something each time! (Camille).
For others, on the other hand, it is really the time spent together that matters, and the preparation/consumption of food is far from central:
You see, for example, I have a friend who comes to eat and she knows how I work and when she comes to my house she is always the one who brings food because she knows that I get bored, so she says to me, “Here, you take care of this, this, this, and I’ll take care of the food”, so that’s fun and it’s true that my friends are starting to get to know me (Pauline).
Thus, the place given to food when eating together is one of the meanings that conditions a harmonious sharing of meals.
Similarly, another meaning that can condition the feasibility of a shared consumption time is the relationship that the commensals have with the fact of eating or not eating the same thing:
Each person helps themselves, except if it is something that is a bit boring, so we serve that, but otherwise each person does it in the order they want because there is one person who wants salad like that and the other doesn’t want it… everything is on the table and we help ourselves […]. So it’s true that he eats green salad, he can’t finish without green salad for example, and he’ll eat a dessert, either yoghurt or something… a dessert (Roxane).
In this case, we can see that, for Roxane and her partner, eating together does not necessarily mean eating exactly the same thing. Conversely, Myriam feels “frustrated” that her partner does not have the same tastes as she does, and this taints their family practice of eating together: “– Cooking vegetables is easy. – If you don’t do it, it’s because of other people’s tastes, right? – Yes, that’s it, in fact I’m frustrated at home”
These questions are particularly topical nowadays, because of the individualization of food, with more and more special diets (gluten-free, vegetarian, lactose-free, etc.). For example, in order to respect the meanings associated with the family meal, some vegetarians make exceptions to their diet and eat meat. Paola bends her vegetarian diet during family meals to avoid being the target of questioning and to avoid being forced to justify herself. Thus, for her, the meeting with her companions takes precedence over her personal values: rather than not eating meat for the sake of animal welfare, she prefers to get along with her family during meals. Similarly, Camille explains that she never forces herself to eat, except when she is at other people’s houses: “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” (Camille)
