Eating Together

Food, Friendship and Inequality

Alice P. Julier

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780252094880
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Sociologia

An insightful map of the landscape of social meals, Eating Together: Food, Friendship, and Inequality argues that the ways in which Americans eat together play a central role in social life in the United States. Delving into a wide range of research, Alice P. Julier analyzes etiquette and entertaining books from the past century and conducts interviews and observations of dozens of hosts and guests at dinner parties, potlucks, and buffets. She finds that when people invite friends, neighbors, or family members to share meals within their households, social inequalities involving race, economics, and gender reveal themselves in interesting ways: relationships are defined, boundaries of intimacy or distance are set, and people find themselves either excluded or included.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Feeding Friends and Others
• 2. From Formality to Comfort: The Discourse of Meals and Manners
• 3. Dinner Parties in America
• 4. Sweetening the Pot: The Shifting Social Landscape of Sociable Meals
• 5. Potlucks
• 6. Artfulness, Solidarity, and Intimacy
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index