Everyday Eating in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden

A Comparative Study of Meal Patterns 1997-2012

Jukka Gronow, Lotte Holm, Jukka Gronow, Lotte Holm

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781350080478
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política agrícola pública

The chapters in this volume concentrate on the mundane and ordinary eating practices of the everyday, showing how these are linked to change in modern society. The contributors present a collection of systematic empirical results from a unique study based on representative samples of four Nordic populations - Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden - conducted at two time points, 15 years apart. The results of this unprecedented longitudinal survey leads the contributors to question many commonly held beliefs about the presumed and feared collapse of the traditional eating habits, family meals, and regular meal patterns. As the social organization of eating is in many ways related to developments in other social institutions such as family, education, and work, chapters provide interesting insights into contemporary society, with key topics selected for scrutiny including gender, food types, diet and health, and cooking practices. Additionally, the chapters highlight changes in the gendering of food practices and signs of increasing informality around meals.

1

Introduction

Eating in Modern Everyday Life

Lotte Holm and Jukka Gronow

Judging by the widespread coverage that food issues enjoy in the mass media today, one might imagine that eating is a major concern of modern men and women. On an almost daily basis, journalists present news of spectacular scientific discoveries about healthy or harmful food items and ingredients. They advise on ‘how to lose weight’ and on other dietary instructions, and inform consumers on the quality and price of food. In reviews, they report back on their visits to new restaurants and exotic places with food cultures of their own, and on famous restaurants, their chefs, and their spectacular achievements. Food and eating are repeatedly being scrutinized as a matter of ethics and sustainability. While some focus on the responsibility of people as consumers, others emphasize the risks and uncertainties that people face as buyers and eaters of food. It is an interesting question why food and eating are so interesting to the public today, and why they are favourite topics in the modern mass media. Food and eating certainly combine many aspects of human life, from care for others to the care of the self, from the future of our globe to the well-being of our bodies. Food habits and taste divide people and bring them together. At times, moral concerns combined with social and economic worries arise over various topics: the dissolution of family life as a consequence of the decline of family meals; the loss of food competence with the disappearance of housewives; and the rapid advance of the fast food industry. Food scares and scandals are also an almost permanent companion to our modern life. At times, it looks as though almost every act of eating, every piece of food we put into our mouth, has political, economic and ethical dimensions.

As an object of scientific research in, for example, nutritional science, food consumption has acted primarily as a potential factor in good and poor health, lengthening or shortening our expected life span. Socio-political interest in food consumption has traditionally concentrated on issues of poverty and hunger, but more recently, and increasingly so, on the impact of food production on the planet – on sustainability, in other words.

Over recent decades, a sociological food research tradition has emerged that treats food and eating mainly as phenomena of social life which offer us one of the best means to study the overall organization of daily life in terms of time and place, social relations and rules of conduct, and the development of these over time. The social organization of eating is in many ways related to developments in other social institutions such as family, work and education. Food practices and their historical evolution are, in other words, a good indicator of what is going on in society. The project presented in this book follows this tradition, concentrating on the mundane, or ordinary, aspects of eating and their historical shifts. The aim is to learn more about how daily eating and everyday practices linked to eating change in modern society. In this introduction, we first highlight a number of key issues that have been debated within social research into modern food and eating. We then describe the design of the project this book is about. Finally, we present a brief outline of the book.

Global or national food cultures?

Historically, national and regional food cultures are formed by local geographical, economic and political conditions (Johansen 1998; Kisbán 1986; Mennel 2010; Pelto and Pelto 1983; Sobal 1999; Teuteberg 1986; Trygg 1991). In modern times, a development has been identified in which local and national food cultures are being eroded by an increasingly globalized, homogenizing food sector. This development, facilitated by global food companies, is often seen as an expression of our domination by modern American food culture, with its simple and often mass-produced meals (see Ritzer’s concept of ‘McDonaldization’) (Warde 1997; Ritzer 1993). However, a counter-trend has also been identified in which we see the revival and reinvention of local and regional food cultures (Grasseni 2011) and the emergence of countercultures prioritizing local provisioning, authenticity and fresh food. In this counter-trend, eating patterns are characterized by the consumption of less processed and convenience food, more regional foods, and more seasonal variation (Counihan and Siniscalchi 2014; Dowler, Kneafsey, Cox and Holloway 2010). Several researchers have suggested that these contrasting trends coexist, reflecting increasing social and economic distinctions in eating. Further, convergent discourses of health and nutrition may be seen as elements of the globalizing trend which introduce more uniform values of food consumption everywhere (Coveney 2006). While nutritional discourses are increasingly conflicting and competing per se – as witnessed by the frequent debates about the health status of different kinds of fat and familiar foodstuffs such as sugar, wheat, gluten and milk – they do have a potential impact on our diet as they mobilize not only public authorities, but also market actors and popular media. To what degree such globalizing trends are dominant in Nordic eating patterns is a matter we shall return to in the analysis we develop.

Rhythm of daily life: Changes in time and place of eating?

How, where, when and with whom we eat, is influenced by the social organization of work and family life, and the geographic location of private homes and workplaces, as well as the rhythm and organization of the workday. This is demonstrated in Robert Rotenberg’s (1981) classical analysis of the change from a five-meal to a three-meal pattern following industrialization in Vienna. This change implied that the location of daily meals shifted: it had included the home, the workplace (which was situated close to or in the home), and public cafés, but came to include only the home and the workplace, now often placed at a distance from the home. The change also meant that the social company enjoyed in daily eating changed: it now included only family members and colleagues, no longer the personal friends or old school mates whom many men would formerly have met in cafés and pubs on an everyday basis (Rotenberg 1981). The decline in the number of eating events can be observed in many industrialized countries. An interesting question is what happens when societies shift from industrial to post-industrial practices. To what extent do people still share common eating times and can we identify typical national peaks in the daily eating frequency?

In modern life, the daily organization of eating also depends on other institutional and practical arrangements in society, such as the size and composition of households, including the increasing number of single person households, the arrangement of public catering in the workplace and in educational institutions, and the accessibility of commercial venues for eating out. It has been suggested that the home may no longer be the primary location for meals, as they are increasingly taken in public places such as restaurants, cafés, fast-food outlets, and so forth, or in canteens (Dinkins 1992; Dumangan and Hackett 1995; Julier 2013; Mogelonsky 1998). If this is true, we would expect to find a decline in eating at home in the Nordic countries, and a rise in eating out.

Meals in social life: Disappearance of family meals?

Eating is an important operator of social life and a primary social function (Fischler 2011). Meals in private households have been described as the medium by which families are created and recreated on a daily basis (DeVault 1991; Jackson 2009; Julier 2013), and family meals are seen as important arenas for the socializing of children into central cultural norms and values (Fischler 2011). Family meals are often associated with a range of moral virtues. For some time, writers in the mass media and scientific literature have been asking whether traditional, regular dining patterns and meal formats have given way to a more irregular and destructured style of eating in which the collective rules organizing temporal, social and spatial dimensions of eating are disappearing (Murcott 1995; Murcott 1997; see also Mestdag 2005 and Southerton, Diaz-Méndez and Warde 2012). The most popular form of this thesis points to the abandonment of family meals and has been advocated in one form or another for at least half a century.

Regular meals eaten at home together with all, or most, family members have given way, it is said, to snacking and the consumption of fast food. Commercialization, globalization, and even ‘Americanization’, as well as the changing social status of women, are often mentioned as the main developments lying behind this process of erosion. Market researchers use the term ‘grazing’ (Caplan 1997) to describe this allegedly new, hurried way of eating. A hamburger and a Coke bought from a burger joint and enjoyed hurriedly while driving a car is perhaps the most stereotypical expression of grazing. In a similar vein, Jean-Pierre Poulain (2002; see also Poulain 2008) has referred to ‘vagabond feeding’ or ‘nibbling’. In Sweden, the term ‘frukostisering’ (meaning breakfastization) has been coined to refer to this trend (Ekström 1990). An increase in the number of meals people eat, and a decrease in meals taken with family members, would indicate changes towards erosion of traditional social eating in households.

Manners of eating: De-structuring or de-traditionalizing?

In addition to, and in parallel with practical arrangements around family and working life, eating is shaped by strong forms of normative regulation. In all societies and cultural groups, models for proper eating exist that dictate not only what foods should and should not be eaten, where, when and by whom specific foods should be eaten, and how foods should be ordered in terms of their combination and sequence (Douglas 1975; Fischler 1988a; Murcott 1982), but also the very conduct and social context of eating. While in the medieval and early modern periods eating practices and manners varied greatly between social classes, such variations appear to be diminishing in modern times. This could in principle mean either that eating has become individualized or that it has become more homogenous.

The phrase ‘civilizing process’ has been coined to describe historical changes taking place between the medieval period and the end of the nineteenth century, during that time, among other things, table etiquette became more formal and detailed, and then spread from the upper classes in France to elites across Europe, and gradually also to the lower social classes (Elias 2000). In a reverse development, identified as informalization occurring in the course of the twentieth century (Wouters 2007), table manners have become less formal and more liberal. This is sometimes seen as a result of diminishing class distinctions, and of a ‘trickle-up’ process linked to large-scale social mobility in which the ideals and norms of ascendant groups mix with those of the previously superior group. Still, even in the 1960s Bourdieu identified distinctive differences between the conduct of festive meals in working class and bourgeois families: an abundance and loose sequencing order in working class meals, witnessing informality and liberty; by contrast, the strict rhythm, formality and stylization of bourgeois meals, implying restraints, self-control and an emphasis on form and manner (Bourdieu 1984: 196). Following Wouters’ (2007) theory of informalization, however, it might be suggested that the rules of correct eating conduct, or table manners, are not as strict as they once were and allow for more individual variation and heterogeneity in behaviour. It has also been suggested that the meal is losing its significance as an event in its own right, since eating events increasingly take place simultaneously with other activities (such as walking down a street, working at a desk, or watching television) (Bugge and Døving 2000; Senauer et al. 1991; Andersen 1997).

It is a common sociological observation, often repeated in the diagnoses of our times, that European cultures have gradually become de-traditionalized and individualized (Giddens 1990; Heelas et al. 1996), and that social norms of behaviour, or etiquette, have become less formalized. Changes in eating practices could thus be a part of a more general trend toward greater relaxation of social rules and manners. If the traditional rules, norms and standards applying to good food and the conduct of meals are dissolving, the sociological literature has raised the question of what comes in their place (Warde 1997). Claude Fischler’s concept of gastro-anomie (Fischler 1988b; Fischler 2011) captures an extreme version of the idea that eating patterns have become irregular and individualized and that cultural eating norms are disappearing. Fischler did, admittedly, set the bar high: his ideal society involved well-organized classical French cuisine, with its extensive three-course lunches and dinners prepared and eaten at home in accordance with traditional table manners. In many theories of modernization, the evolution of more relaxed norms is rather welcomed, as it extends the freedom of the individual and expands the cultural space of human action (Wouters 2007). However, with respect to food and meals, this evolution is often associated with the fear of loss of social cohesion and order (Andersen 1997; Fischler 2011; Mennel et al. 1992). In the following study we investigate possible trends towards de-traditionalization and informalization by analysing specific traits of eating events: duration, seating arrangements, parallel activities to eating.

Meals: Disruption of structure?

Typically, studies of meals are based on the notion that eating has a certain structure and rules.

In anthropological and sociological research, the meal has been identified as a structured social affair that typically distinguishes family and friends from other contacts (Mäkelä 2009). Meals are characterized ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Text
• Title Page
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Eating in Modern Everyday Life Lotte Holm and Jukka Gronow
• 2 The Food We Eat Lotte Holm, Drude Skov Lauridsen, Jukka Gronow, Nina Kahma, Unni Kjærnes, Thomas Bøker Lund, Johanna Mäkelä, and Mari Niva
• 3 The Daily Rhythm of Eating Thomas Bøker Lund and Jukka Gronow
• 4 The Social Context and Conduct of Eating Lotte Holm, Drude Lauridsen, Thomas Bøker Lund, Jukka Gronow, Mari Niva and Johanna Mäkelä
• 5 Family Meals on the Decline? Lotte Holm, Thomas Bøker Lund, Drude Lauridsen, and Jukka Gronow
• 6 The Complexity of Meals Nina Kahma, Johanna Mäkelä, Mari Niva, and Thomas Bøker Lund
• 7 Eating Out, Having Guests Thomas Bøker Lund
• 8 Cooking and Gender Lotte Holm, Marianne Pipping Ekström, Sara Hach, and Thomas Bøker Lund
• 9 Food Insecurity Anita Borch and Unni Kjærnes
• 10 Eating Practices and Dietary Health Lotte Holm, Thomas Bøker Lund, and Mari Niva
• 11 Eating Sustainably Mari Niva, Johanna Mäkelä, Nina Kahma, and Unni Kjærnes
• 12 Conclusions: Continuity and Change in Everyday Eating Lotte Holm and Jukka Gronow
• Appendix Thomas Bøker Lund and Mari Niva
• References
• Index
• Copyright