"We insist on special places, and times for eating, on specific equipment, on stylised decoration, on predictable sequence among the foods eaten, on limitation of movement, and on bodily propriety. In other words, we turn the consumption of food, a biological necessity, into a carefully cultured phenomenon. We use eating as a medium for social relationships: satisfaction of the most individual of needs becomes a means of creating community."
"Other people, in other parts of the world today, have rules that are different from ours, and it is important to try to comprehend the reasoning that lies behind what they do if we are to understand what we do and why."
"Dinner too is habitual, and aims at order and communication, at satisfying both the appetite of the diners and their expectations as to how everybody present should behave. In this sense, a meal can be thought of as a ritual and a work of art, with limits laid down, desires aroused and fulfilled, enticements, variety, patterning and plot."
"Less noticeable signs can catch us off our guard and rob us more insidiously of our sense of security. Most of the picturesque (vivid) details that strike travellers as weird have to do with table manners."
"Rituals survive because people want them to do so; they "work". Culture not instinct, determines a good deal of what we do. Human beings rejoice in the action of patterning, in itself."
"The predictability of manners makes us interlock with each other, all act in concert. We connect, in addition, with events, dates, shared emotions, kinship and group ties, the life cycle, the world in general. Conventions, as the word suggests, are attitudes and patterns of patterns of behaviour we have in common: we "come together"
"Food is still our ritual relaxation (a "break" in the working day), our chance to choose companions and talk to them, the excuse to recreate our humanity as well as our strength, and to renew our relationships."
"Table manners are rituals because they are the way in which it is commonly agreed that eating should be performed."
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