Commensality: From Everyday Food to Feast

Susanne Kerner, Cynthia Chou, Morten Warmind, Susanne Kerner, Cynthia Chou, Morten Warmind

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780857857194
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique publique en matière d'agriculture

Throughout time and in every culture, human beings have eaten together. Commensality - eating and drinking at the same table - is a fundamental social activity, which creates and cements relationships. It also sets boundaries, including or excluding people according to a set of criteria defined by the society. Particular scholarly attention has been paid to banquets and feasts, often hosted for religious, ritualistic or political purposes, but few studies have considered everyday commensality. Commensality: From Everyday Food to Feast offers an insight into this social practice in all its forms, from the most basic and mundane meals to the grandest occasions. Bringing together insights from anthropologists, archaeologists and historians, this volume offers a vast historical scope, ranging from the Late Neolithic period (6th millennium BC), through the Middle Ages, to the present day. The sixteen chapters include case studies from across the world, including the USA, Bolivia, China, Southeast Asia, Iran, Turkey, Portugal, Denmark and the UK. Connecting these diverse analyses is an understanding of commensality's role as a social and political tool, integral to the formation of personal and national identities. From first experiences of commensality in the sharing of food between a mother and child, to the inaugural dinner of the American president, this collection of essays celebrates the variety of human life and society.

1

Introduction

Susanne Kerner and Cynthia Chou

Food and the consumption of food are very much a part of everyday discourse, and innumerable questions about them are discussed in public media, academic conversations, and over private dinners. A main concern in many of these discussions revolves around the elements connecting food with health: what kind of food is healthy (official suggestions keep changing),1 and why do nearly one billion people go hungry, while at the same time many Western and increasingly Middle Eastern countries have considerable problems with obesity?2 Today, European countries run large state supported research projects on food behavior in order to solve the problem of ever increasing health costs resulting from “wrong” eating habits. Food is one of the essential elements of human life without which survival is not possible, yet it is much more than simple biological nutrition. This book therefore deals with the cultural aspects of food and food consumption.

Commensality literally means eating at the same table (mensa). In its broader general meaning, it describes eating and drinking together in a common physical or social setting. Eating is, in all cultures, a social activity and commensality is undeniably one of the most important articulations of human sociality (Fischler, 2011: 529). As Freud (1918: 174) observed: “To eat and drink with someone was at the same time a symbol and a confirmation of social community and of the assumption of mutual obligations.” Food is tasty only because of the pleasure derived from eating it with good company or of knowing that eating with the right company confers social distinction (Freedman, 2007: 15). To put it in a nutshell, commensality is the essence of food, and commensal acts are essential for the integration of a society. Moreover, these are acts that must be continually reinforced through practice. Commensality is about creating and reinforcing social relations (Bourdieu, 1984). As the chapters in this volume demonstrate quite clearly, the question of who takes part in commensal occasions is highly significant. Whereas daily meals may form around a relatively stable core of participants, special commensal occasions encompass persons who do not usually eat or drink together. Widening the social circle (or commensal circles as Van Esterik calls it in her chapter in this volume) brings forth a variety of other effects.

Early treatises on commensality focused largely on issues pertaining to obligatory or prohibited commensalism as a social and psychological functional bond, uniting or separating social groups. For Robertson Smith (1889 [1957]), Marcel Mauss (1954) and Emile Durkheim (1981 [1894]), commensalism forged shared identities. Explorations into commensal totem-taboos that impacted upon the degree of internal group social distinctions and the intensities of group divisions between insiders and outsiders were further explored by Levi-Strauss (1963), and developed by Mary Douglas (1966) in her groundbreaking work on Purity and Danger. To this day, these works continue to be the foundations in our understandings of how commensality serves as a medium for shared cognitive taboos in boundary-maintaining mechanisms. In the realm of these studies, the concentration has been on the religious, ritualistic, and sacrificial aspects of commensality. What was overlooked was the fundamental dimension of everyday commensalism.

From as early as 1910, attempts were made by Georg Simmel to analyze commensality beyond the formal feast. He placed his primary emphasis on discussing the establishment of social bonds through the common or mundane meal. In “Die Soziologie der Mahlzeit” (Sociology of the Meal), he was eloquent on the subject of how “the exclusive selfishness of eating” is transformed into a habit of gathering together “such as is seldom attainable on occasions of a higher and intellectual order. Persons who in no way share any special interest can get together at the common meal … There lies the immeasurable sociological significance of the meal” (Simmel, 1997 [1910]: 130). Commensality, he stressed, was not only to be understood within the context of ceremonial feasts. It was specifically also a part of the sharing of the common everyday meal. It is through the sharing of the common meal that a person’s biological and “exclusive selfishness of eating” is transformed into a collective social experience (ibid.: 130). In Audrey Richards’ (2004 [1932]) study of the Bemba of Zambia, she argued how the biological determinants of appetite and diet are molded by particular systems of human relationships and different cultural traditions as well as customs. According to her, “It is for want of this concrete data that Durkheim and his followers of the French sociological school have given a misleading account of this question. Like Robertson Smith, they have emphasized that eating is a social activity, rather than an individual physiological process, but in their hands this sociological aspect of nutrition has developed into a positive apotheosis of the ceremonial meal” (Richards, 2004 [1932]: 180).

Following these theories about the important sociological aspects of commensality, many volumes have very fruitfully studied the political, social, and ritual importance of one particular kind of commensality: that is, the feast (e.g. Bray, 2003a; Dietler and Hayden, 2001a). While many of these studies are archaeological, they draw on the work of cultural anthropologists and historians, including particularly Douglas (1966) and Appadurai (1981).

In this volume, our locus of analysis is that eating and the sharing of both the formal and common meal constitute, to borrow Marcel Mauss’s (1954) classic concept, a “total social fact.” That is to say, they are occasions which simultaneously embody and present all aspects of society: the economic, jural, political, religious, aesthetics, moral, etc. It follows then that the contributions in this volume will analyze commensality in all its forms. Special emphasis is given to the sharing of mundane meals as a key domain for understanding the praxis of commensality. Such habitual forms of interaction allow people to “read” and understand each other. Understanding does not come automatically; it needs to be reinforced. Everyday commensality has an important role in this reinforcement as it consists of the sharing of food, conversation, and exchange of body-language between the participants. People do not just feast; they also—and much more frequently—take part in everyday meals that are eaten in the company of particular sets of commensal partners. In mundane meals, as well as in special meals, the politics of inclusion and exclusion—the “gastropolitics”—play a central, if often masked, role (Pollock, 2012a). Here Foucault’s (1977) notion of the relations between power and body, expressed in his ideas of biopolitics, becomes important. The political dimensions of commensality encompass first the inclusion–exclusion aspect of it, which is so important in structuring a society in past as well as present societies (e.g. not being able to eat pork can work very much as an exclusion in a pork eating society) and both in the private as well as the public sector; second, the socio-political motives for a particular public commensal action in societal power plays that also touches upon inclusion; and, third, the interest of modern (and past) states in the health (and thus body) of their citizens.

So far, food studies have tended to focus on extremes, say, to concentrate on attitudes about food and commensality in countries or cultures categorized as “Western” and “modern” versus “tribal”; or types of meals such as “feasts” versus “common meals.” The point we want to make in this volume is, however, that not all peoples in the world eat around a table or a common hearth—in fact, there are insurmountable variations of all kinds. We shall demonstrate that all cultures have ideas and rules governing commensal behavior. Exclusion from and inclusion in commensal events need not be absolute categories, that is to say, it does not necessarily mean total exclusion or total inclusion per se. People might be partially included or partially excluded. They may, for instance, be able to see, smell, and hear the sounds of a feast while having only limited access to the food and drink that are partaken by others. Furthermore, whereas daily meals may form around a relatively stable core of participants, special commensal occasions encompass persons who do not usually eat or drink together. On such occasions, widening the social circle inevitably brings with it a variety of other effects. A holistic or multifaceted approach to the study of commensality has therefore been adopted in the selection of contributions to this volume. The result is that the essays, taken together, present a worldwide and historical scope to the study of human commensal behavior. The essays represent studies in several European countries, the U.S.A., China, Bolivia, Southeast Asia, Turkey, and the Near East, spreading across a time span from the Late Neolithic period (sixth millennium BCE), through the Medieval period to the present day. This volume is a celebration of the varieties of people that make up our world and the wealth of human experience. We take up the challenge to “take commensality seriously” (Hirschman 1996) and fully explore the concept in its various dimensions and operations.

In addition to this Introduction, there are 16 chapters in this volume. Each of these can be read and understood on its own. However, they have also been arranged in an order that effectively connects and unifies them under three common themes: namely, everyday commensality, special commensality, and the role of commensality in identity formation and its role as a social and political tool.

The first part of this volume comprises of Chapters 2 to 6. It deals explicitly with everyday commensality and the fundamental social importance of including and excluding members of a society to reinforce important relationships. Co-presence is allowing the sharing of food as integral parts of social behavior. Everyday commensality is a habitual form of being gathered together, and forms a base for trust and also a routine that allows the minimization of conflicts in daily life. Food and foodways are traditionally objects of archaeological research, often in connection with the development of food production during the Neolithic.

C. B. Tan’s chapter begins the section on everyday commensality. Tan discusses the various forms of commensality with emphasis on commensality as a human social institution that expresses the value of hospitality, which is crucial for cultivating social relations. The concept is explored through the categories of “domestic commensality,” “kin and communal commensality,” “ceremonial and religious commensality,” “political commensality,” and “hospitality commensality.” Each category is exemplified and discussed on the basis of data derived from extensive fieldwork in Southeast Asia. Tan demonstrates how the different categories of commensality differ and interplay. He also shows how commensality provides the embodied experience of social relations with people, and that the concept does not just denote the simple fact of eating together, but may also function as a lens to study culture and social relations also.

In Chapter 3, Penny Van Esterik looks at the most fundamental of commensal actions: the sharing of food between mother and child. This particular form of food sharing is discussed as a practice that begins in utero and stretches back to our evolutionary and ontogenetic pasts. While most studies of commensality consider the food sharing practices of adults, this chapter draws attention to infant and child feeding, thus revealing new dimensions of commensality. It is argued that breastfeeding is at the conceptual core of human commensality, and models food sharing for all humans. Without being fed by someone, a newborn dies. The commensal relation created by the first paradigmatic act of food sharing involves reciprocity, intimacy, and nurturance, and can be analyzed by reference to commensal circles. The commensal circle is a space where people share food, eat together, and feed each other. Commensal circles expand from feeding in utero, to include breastfeeding and related practices, siblings, other household members, community members, and strangers. Commensal circles may also include ancestors or spirits who are fed along with human family members.

The ongoing debate about the importance of commensality for contemporary societies and their health is the background for Chapter 4 by Boris Andersen. The relation between commensality and obesity among young Danes is discussed here. The research is based on Danish youth under 28 years old and their habits of commensal eating (or not). The importance of commensality as a means to curb obesity epidemics is discussed, as well as the different conceptions of food as a possible contributing factor of obesity. The influence of physical frameworks is studied in contrasting the American lifestyle (very health oriented but eat alone) with the French lifestyle (where food plays a large role and people eat together).

Chapter 5, by Yve le Grand, presents another specific aspect of everyday commensality. The discussion is based on fieldwork undertaken with an environmental activist group based in Lisbon, Portugal. The commensal food studied is the Jantar Popular (JP) that Grupo de Acção e Intervenção Ambiental (GAIA), an environmental non-governmental organization (NGO), facilitates every Thursday of the week. The JP is a vegan dinner made with organic, genetically modified organism (GMO) free, locally produced, and socially just ingredients. This dinner is organized by volunteers, from planning the menu to cleaning up the space(s) at the end of the evening. Without volunteers there would be no dinner. Commensality becomes an ideal tool for putting environmental food politics into practice through “just” eating in commensal surroundings. Simultaneously, the JP turns into a Temporary Vegan Zone, in the vein of Turner’s (1969) “communitas,” as it becomes a temporary place where people can transcend their everyday experience of food.

In Chapter 6, Maria Bianca D’Anna and Carolin Jauss report their findings from their studies of cooking practices during the second half of the fourth millennium BCE in southwestern Iran (Chogha Mish) and northeastern Anatolia (Arslantepe), to gain information about past commensal events and the role of food in society. Like food consumption, cooking can take place in various social contexts, and how, where, when, and by whom food is cooked plays an important role in commensal practices. D’Anna and Jauss attempt to trace the interplay between material culture, people, and the different roles of cooking practices within the two communities under study. Through the analysis of vessels according to their shape, capacity, and use-wear traces, insight is gained into everyday as well as out-of-the-ordinary meal preparation. The two case studies show that cooking touched multiple spheres of life, and the labor organization connected with cooking had many facets. Food cooked to be consumed on the spot and secondary products that could be stored played possible different roles in both communities. This does not only imply a diverse spatial and temporal proximity of the two activities, but it seems also to be related to different social contexts.

The second part of this volume, comprising Chapters 7 to 10, examines different forms of special commensality, spanning from identifying elements of commensality in archaeological contexts to specific examples of medieval banquets. Special commensality serves various purposes: providing crucial periodic reaffirmation of social groups, establishing power relations that are central to the maintenance of community and political organization, and providing necessary communal labor (Halstead, 2012). Different kinds of foods may mark feasts as distinct from daily meals, such as large portions of meat or culturally unusual foods; special sets of drinking vessels or eating equipment might also be an element.

Katheryn Twiss opens the discussion on special commensality in Chapter 7 by examining the core concerns in the archaeology of food, and, more specifically, the special events in commensality. Three key methodological issues affecting archaeologists are identified. First is the fact that different food-related data sets have different relationships with human activity, so the findings, for example of animal bones and cereals, have to be interpreted in their contextual meaning. Second is the fact that the context and character of a sample determines its interpretative utility. Third is that full integration of multiple data sets remains a challenge, and is more than just looking at all available material. Twiss also delves into the definitions of food and feasting as used in archaeology, and their possible meaning for commensal acts.

In Chapter 8, Paul Freedman, provides the historical approach to the question. Banquets across different time periods in European and American history are studied as complicated forms of commensality, especially in connection with excess and hierarchy. This chapter thus deals with the less comfortable elements also expressed through commensality. Particular medieval banquets were rich on excess, where several hours of dining over dozens of courses were not unusual. More contemporary forms of commensality have a less gregarious character, the question of hierarchy, however, remains to be an important topic in banquets, expressed in the seating order of the medieval banquet as much as in the inaugural dinner of the recent American president. The rules of what has to be included in a successful banquet are discussed as well.

In Chapter 9, Alexandra Fletcher and Stuart Campbell bring into focus ritual feasting which constitutes anot...