A cross-cultural approach to eating together: Practices of commensality among French, German and Spanish young adults

Abstract

This article explores commensal practices of French, German and Spanish young adults. In doing so, it aims to fill a gap in research on commensality and on contemporary eating practices in Europe within a qualitative cross-cultural approach. The different nationalities of the informants, along with their country of residence, contribute to emphasizing cultural diversity and laying the foundations for the highlighting of poignant differences between French, German and Spanish young people, particularly in relation to meal times and content, places of food sociability, social organization surrounding shared meals and the role of food sharing in their social life. These aspects reveal different social meanings attached to food and commensality, as well as variability of commensal forms between young people living in or coming from different European countries.

Assessing Commensality in Research

“…Among the identified papers on commensality assessment, 51 papers were categorized as qualitative. These were put into subcategories, such as qualitative interviews ( Table 2 ) [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 ] and ethnological studies ( Table 3 ) [ 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 ], log book plus interview ( Table 4 ) [ 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 ] case studies ( Table 5 ) [ 52 , 53 ] and diverse methods ( Table 6 ) [ 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , …”

“…The first one studying commensality to understand a phenomenon within meals, and the second to examine how to understand commensality from a meal point of view. Several papers revealed aspects of different social meanings attached to food and commensality, as well as how meaning seems to have changed over time [ 27 , 36 , 51 ]. There was also some variations around the concept, such as; commensal space, meal, eating practice, conviviality, convivial dining [ 18 , 45 , 68 ].…”

“…Moreover, the diversity of the applicability of the method differed within qualitative methods, ranging from more or less rather standardized questionnaires [ 14 , 26 ], with specific open questions, to collections of life stories [ 27 , 34 ]. We could also see the same variation in how data have been analyzed ranging from statistical analysis such as regression analysis [ 50 ] content analysis [ 65 ] or using grounded theory [ 35 , 41 ].…”

“…According to different application of theories, theories surrounding “practices” were observed as the most commonly used in interview studies [ 24 , 27 , 30 , 34 ], within ethnographic methodology [ 31 ] as well as in questionnaires [ 26 ]. As commensality was seen as an important practice that appears in different settings and contexts, we thereby identified a perception of the importance of commensality research for more theoretical approaches on meal and food studies.…”

Food choice motives and the nutritional quality of diet during the COVID-19 lockdown in France

“…In addition, a survey on 3000 French adults reported that 42% declared having pre-meal drinks (“ apéritif ”) more often during than before the lockdown ( Darwin Nutrition & IFOP, 2020 ). Pre-meal drinks are usually the first part of a meal, opening a social eating time and are often accompanied by finger foods ( Danesi, 2018 ). The deterioration of nutritional quality during the lockdown may be partly due to increased number of social and festive eating occasions within the home, associated with consumption of low-nutritional-quality foods (e.g., sweet-tasting beverages and alcoholic beverages, processed meat, sugary foods).…”