This year I’ve been doing some traveling, mostly in Europe. This brought me to some interesting realizations about some cultural differences in eating between Europeans and Americans. I live in Montreal, which culturally finds itself between Europe and America. Depending where you live in Montreal, it can feel more like you’re in America, or Europe. I’ve also lived in the USA and travelled there quite a bit. I’ve visited over 25 countries and I’ve been to Europe many times. I’ve been four or five times to France, a couple of times to Eastern Europe, 8 or 9 times to England, a few times to Spain and Italy, and so on. Whenever I go back and forth between countries, some important differences in eating habits become very apparent to me. But first, why does it matter? In America, obesity rates reach over 30% of the population. In France, it’s 11%. The 11% obesity rate in France is caused by the fact that French people are starting to eat more like Americans, because obesity rates used to be only 5.5% in 1995. In America, 33.8% of the adult population is now considered obese. In 1997 it used to be 19.4%. Keep in mind that we’re talking about obesity here, which means a BMI over 30. For example, for me to become obese, at a height of 5 foot 10 inches, I would have to weigh about 210 pounds. So even though the French, and other Europeans, are going in the wrong direction with their eating habits, they still have a long way to go to reach the horrendous proportions in America. So let’s take a look at some important cultural differences. The Importance of Tradition In Italy, the cappuccino or caffè latte is something you drink in the morning, for breakfast. At other times of the day you’re supposed to drink black espresso, and only after meals. If you order a caffè latte in the middle of the day in Italy, people will automatically know that you’re not Italian. They will also secretly and sometimes not so secretly laugh at you… In America of course, once we embraced the caffè latte, or as we call it, the latte, we didn’t attach any traditions around it. Which means people have giant lattes loaded with sugar and calories several times a day! Traditions in food matter because they keep a certain order to things, and prevent overeating. In England, the “afternoon tea” allowed you to have a cup of tea with something sweet. In America, any time of the day is a good excuse to eat something sweet… Other traditions that we’ve completely forgotten is the “dessert,” which is supposed to be a special treat that you have after a meal, when you can afford it. In America, dessert is something you eat soon after you wake up in the morning, when you have your giant muffin. It’s also something you eat throughout the day, whenever you feel something remotely close to hunger! The Sweet Breakfast As I learned in the book “Salt, Sugar, Fat,” a wonderful exposé of the processed food industry in America, the sweet breakfast is an invention of the cereal manufacturers in the middle of the last century. Americans have a sweet tooth for breakfast, which is why they usually eat cake for breakfast. Except that they don’t call it cake. Instead, they call it “pancakes with syrup” (cake!), muffin (cake!), or Nutella covered toasts (cake!), or a bowl of sweet cereal with milk (almost cake!). Recently, I was spending some time with a Czech family, on my last trips to Europe. I noticed how the typical Czech breakfast was nothing but sweet. Typical foods included cold cuts, smoked salmon, savory spreads, with some bread, and some fruits. Many Europeans also like to eat raw vegetables for breakfast, such as tomatoes and cucumbers, to accompany their other breakfast choices. In most parts of the world, breakfast is not sweet. In Thailand, the typical could include a thick rice porridge, eggs, meat, Chinese dumplings (Dim Sum) and some kind of savory soup. In other Asian countries, there is no clear distinction between breakfast foods and lunch and dinner food. In France, people are traditionally practically fasting for breakfast. That’s why the word for breakfast (déjeuner) in France actually means the lunch meal. Later, when people got in the habit of having a croissant with a cup of coffee in the morning, a new word was added to describe this new “meal.” It was called “petit déjeuner” or “little breakfast.” Most French people have very little food for breakfast. Some French people I know, living in Montreal, only eat some fruit and have a cup of coffee for breakfast. A single croissant is also popular to eat for breakfast in France, and dip in your coffee. Eating Frequency In France, snacking is frowned upon. As we’ve seen, French people eat a small breakfast (if they eat at all). Lunch is traditionally the biggest meal of the day, and when time allows, it can drag on for hours and include many courses, with wine. Dinner is typically small and many people only eat a few things for dinner, like yogurt and fruit. But no matter what French people choose to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, one thing is for sure: snacking is not encouraged and not usually part of the habits taught to children. In France, culturally speaking, parents don’t have this constant obsession and guilt around parenting, which generally leads to more well-behaved children, at least according to American author Pamela Druckerman, who wrote “Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting.” In France, children eat three meals a day and have one snack around 4 p.m. Adults generally don’t have this afternoon snack. Of course, things are changing in France, as more and more people break away with tradition and snack more often. But after a stay in France outside of big cities, and coming back to America, you’d think you were dealing with two separate races of humans: one who only requires to eat 2 or 3 times a day, and one who seemingly must eat every 2 hours to survive! Guess which is which? This constant snacking is also encouraged by America’s nutritionists and fitness experts, who have for years spoken against eating “big meals that drain your energy” and instead recommended to eat lots of small meals every 2-3 hours, to “keep the metabolism up.” In reality, this eating frequency has no real scientific basis and seemingly doesn’t lead to good results, considering that most of the world goes pretty well on 2 or 3 meals a day, while Americans, with obesity rates pushing 35%, are told to eat more often. Portion Sizes If you ever go to Paris, or on your next trip there, I want you to walk into a Parisian café and order a “jus d’orange” (orange juice). Besides practicing your French, you’ll probably be shocked at how small your glass is! The typical freshly-squeezed orange juice glass in Parisian cafés is 6 ounces, or less than a cup of juice. Then you’ll be mad at me for having to pay a few Euros for that, but at least you’ll have learned an interesting lesson in portion sizes. Everything in America is bigger. The country. The cars. The food plates. The people. I don’t mind big highways myself and I feel more comfortable driving a Jeep SUV than a Smart ForTwo car. But when it comes to food, portion sizes matter. The topic of portion sizes as a cue to overeating is explored in depth in the book “The End of Overeating” by David Kessler. Quoting a study done on the popcorn eating habits at movie theaters, “people who were given the big buckets ate an average of 53 percent more than those given medium-size buckets. Give them a lot, and they eat a lot.” After a recent trip to Europe, I’m writing this article in San Francisco. Staying downtown, I’m noticing everywhere the ubiquitous Starbucks to-go cups. I’m also noticing how everyone walks around with those giant drinks, loaded with milk and sugar, and at how uncommon the smaller sizes are. Give them a lot, they eat a lot. Give them less, they eat less. And if the food is good, both groups feel equally satisfied. I don’t have to go in details about this point. Travel to almost any country in the world and you’ll notice how the typical portion sizes are much smaller than in America. Yet, French food is revered throughout the world as the culinary standard upon which all other cuisines are judged. And guess what is the characteristic of gourmet French food: small portions of extremely rich and delicious food. The problem in America is that people eat large portions of extremely rich foods, which most people think are also extremely delicious as well. The only way to stay lean while eating large portions of food is to eat foods that are naturally low in calories, such as fruits and vegetables. The Joy of Eating Socially The movement for “Slow Food” started in the North of Italy, when its founder, Carlo Petrini, found that Italian people were losing their regional cuisine and falling for the fast food culture stemming from America. The movement now promotes local food traditions in over 150 countries. When we sit down to enjoy long lunches or dinners in company of family, we eat fewer total calories, even though the dishes may contain rich elements such as cream, and be washed down with some wine. Although most of the daily calories may come from a typical long French lunch, the overall caloric intake is lower than in snacking and fast-fooding America. The industry of processed foods in America came to answer the question that’s on everyone’s mind by 4 p.m. and to which most have no answer. That question is “what’s for dinner?” The disappearance of the family dinner led to the Kraft Dinner and Cookies for dessert, among other of the many processed food choices. When we take time to eat with friends and family, we focus on our food, we enjoy it more, and we’ll be less tempted after to binge on sugary and fatty snacks to compensate. Is it time to bring back this tradition to this continent? The Quality of Ingredients The obsession over ingredient quality is palpable in France. I once sat through a very heated discussion between two French men, who were discussing the best way to cook a snail, and of course, where to source them. In France, there’s a deep concern about the area where the food is from, whether it’s wine or other foodstuffs. It’s called “le terroir” in French and it’s fundamental to understanding the somewhat complex system of rules that rule over certain specific food products in the country. In France, for a cheese to be labeled as “Roquefort,” it not only has to be made using very specific ingredients, but also has to come from a specific area. Of course, French wines are a famous example. It would be heresy in France (and, in fact, illegal) to label a wine as “Champagne” if the product is mere sparkling wine coming from any other region than the region of Champagne in the north of France. Although all of the labeling laws make it difficult for some people to innovate, it does help preserve tradition and purity in food products. This comes from a cultural instinct to seek the best ingredients possible and make the recipe in a very specific way before you can call your product “genuine.” Food Angst Finally, a less obvious cultural difference in eating between Americans and Europeans is something that I refer to as “food angst.” In America, everybody has access to an abundance of rich and delicious foods (that unfortunately have the side effect of making you fat and unhealthy) at a very low cost. At the same time, no one is more obsessed about food, dieting and “control” than Americans. Watch a French cook prepare his food and you’d be shocked at how little consideration they put into the amount of salt and butter they throw in their concoctions. Yet, in spite of eating such calorie-dense foods, French people will eat fewer total calories than Americans, without even thinking about it. Maybe you’ve read the book “Eat, Pray, Love” or have seen the movie. For me the dialogue that most represents this food angst that I’m talking about is from the movie Eat, Pray, Love, when in the Barber shops Italian people discuss these cultural differences. Julia Roberts: I feel so guilty. I’ve been in Rome for three weeks and all I’ve done is learn a few Italian words and eat!” Man on Barber chair: “You feel guilty because you’re American! You don’t know how to enjoy yourself! Julia Roberts: I beg your pardon? Man on Barber chair: It’s true. Americans know entertainment. But they don’t know pleasure… I’m serious. Listen to me! You want to know your problem? Americans… you work too hard, you get burned out! Then you come home and spend the whole weekend in your pajamas in front of the TV! But you don’t know pleasure… You have to be told you’ve earned it! You see a commercial that says “It’s Miller time!” and you say… “That’s right! Now I’m going to buy a six-pack! And you drink the whole thing and you wake up the next morning and you feel terrible! But… an Italian doesn’t need to be told. He walks by a sign that says “you deserve a break today!” And he says, “Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m planning on taking a break at noon… to go over to your house, and sleep with your wife!” (laughs). Of course, the quote is taking quite out of context, but I think you understand my point… Instead of having so much guilt over food, we should learn to enjoy ourselves when we actually indulge, and then forget about it. Think about food and enjoy it when it’s time to eat, and then enjoy the rest of your time not thinking about food. Conclusion I love American and I love Europe, and I feel blessed living somewhere that seems like a middle point between the two worlds. My English friend Michael used to say “I never had a bad day in America,” and I think this short sentences summarizes what I love most about this country. The dynamism, the innovation, and energy of America also has another side, which is playing itself out in the obesity crisis. Maybe it’s time to return to some sense of tradition and we might start making a bigger dent in the obesity crisis. Introduction: The fate of meals? 1 Food is essential for human survival and for social life. Food builds our physical bodies and is intimately bound up with cultural classifications, world views and cosmologies, and thus with identity (Fischler, 1988). Food and eating are proclaimed to lie at the very core of sociality: they signify “togetherness” (Mennell et al., 1992). The meal is a marker for social relationships and ritualised sharing of food (Douglas, 1975; Sjögren-de Beauchaine, 1988). In Simmel’s classical analysis (1910) the meal is described as a mediator of socialisation. The need for food is something all humans have in common. “This is precisely what makes the gathering together for a shared meal possible in the first place, and the transcendence of the mere naturalism of eating develops out of the socialisation mediated in this way” (Simmel, 1910 in Frisby & Featherstone, 1997: 135). The act of eating at the same table – commensality – is an essential feature of social life (Mäkelä, 2000; Sobal, 2000). Commensality means coordination, reciprocity and redistribution, and in daily life meals are habitual events that bring social groups together (Fischler, 2011). 2 Mary Douglas (e.g. 1975) analyzed how food and social relations are interconnected. While meals belong to the realm of family and close friends, drinks may be shared with other people, too. Analyses inspired by Douglas (1975, see also Douglas and Nicod, 1974) have highlighted the structure of meals – meal formats – as ordered systems relating to other ordered systems, and to gendered roles and responsibilities in households (Murcott, 1982, 1983 and 1986). In the Nordic countries, similar studies have highlighted the meanings of food and meals in various population groups, and shown, that here too, food and meals are important media in social life for building groups and social relations (Bugge & Døving, 2000; Ekström, 1990; Fürst, 1985; Holm, 1996; Mäkelä, 1996; Haukenes, 2007; Sylow & Holm, 2009; Roos & Wandel, 2004). 3 It has been a repeatedly posed question both in media and the scientific literature about modernisation whether traditional regular meal patterns and meal formats are being disrupted (Murcott, 1995 and 1997). Judging from media discussion and modern urban life, we get the impression that ordinary daily eating has changed considerably during the last decades. In the academic literature, we see hypotheses about individualisation, the dissolution of family meals, and globalisation as key elements of modernisation (Burnett, 1989; Mintz, 1996; Ritzer, 1993). Increased snacking and consumption of fast food are depicted to epitomize these tendencies. Interestingly, various attempts to grasp the proclaimed new patterns of eating have often included developing apposite names to the recognized change. Market researchers created the term “grazing” (Caplan, 1997). The grazing hypothesis contends that food is eaten in less patterned ways than before with regard to time, place and contents (Senauer et al., 1991). Jean-Pierre Poulain (2002) has called it “vagabond feeding” or “nibbling”. On a more general level it has been argued that in a state of “gastro-anomy” (Fischler, 1988) previous cultural norms for what should be eaten when and with whom disappear, and regular meals become increasingly rare and replaced by irregular eating patterns. Also in the Nordic countries this discussion has been prominent which is witnessed by a series of local concepts describing modern gastro-anomy. In Sweden, the term “breakfastification” (frukostisering), (Ekström, 1990: 73) denotes the alleged de-structuration of meal eating, and in Denmark and Norway the concept “eating food on the go” (spisning i forbifarten, see Holm, 2003; mat i farten, see Bugge, Lillebø & Lavik, 2009) emerged. 1 The project was financially supported by the Joint Committee of the Nordic Social Science Research (...) 4 However, we argue that such impressions may be misleading, in letting us confuse the spectacular with the general and the ordinary. Whether or not daily food practices are characterized by traditional home-based and family-centred meals, or whether they are increasingly taken over by the industry or the catering business is an empirical question. This was the background for a study we conducted in 1997 about everyday eating patterns in four Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden1. The question about the character of eating patterns in the modern Nordic societies calls for empirical data that can be generalised, i.e., a quantitative and representative design. We therefore conducted a population survey based on computer assisted telephone interviews (CATI) with almost 5 000 individuals in the four countries. The respondents were representative of the Nordic populations with respect to gender, age, region, and educational background. 5 In the following we first present the theoretical background for our study. We then outline the methodological challenges of a comparative survey and our solutions to them. This is followed by important results from the study focusing on the character – both similarities and differences – of eating patterns in the Nordic countries in the late 1990s. We end by summarizing some main findings and their significance as well as briefly presenting our new study which will give us a possibility to analyse changes in Nordic eating patterns between 1997 and 2012. Theoretical background 6 Food consumption is not a social institution in the same way as the family or the market; it is better framed as a set of coordinated practices, in which the practices as well as the overall configuration are subject to institutionalisation (Kjærnes et al., 2007). Everyday food habits are neither explicit, individual acts of decision-making, as assumed in cognitive approaches (see e.g. Conner & Armitage, 2002), nor are they mere unconscious, pre-determined acts (Gronow & Warde, 2001). Habits normalise practice. They are the “way things are done” (by ”Us” if not by ”Them”). Such “normal” practices describe how things are usually done, but also how things should be done. 7 However, food consumption is not only guided by social norms and tradition. Eating does take place within the habitual and ordinary practices of everyday life and the ways in which these practices are organised in time and space influence the patterns of eating. Eating contributes to ordering our days into segments: morning, midday, afternoon, and evening. The order and rhythm of eating – the meal pattern – form intersections between the public sphere of production and the private sphere of reproduction, of family and recreation (Aymard et al., 1996). The focus of interest is then the organisation of schedules, the particular modes in which food preparation and meals interchange with work and other activities, as part of cyclical calendars as well as throughout the day. These schedules are influenced by societal change. 8 A classical study by Rotenberg (1981) shows how eating patterns in Vienna shifted from the early 1900s up until the 1980s. During this period, meals and snacks shifted depending on the organisation of work, not only in terms of time and contents of meals, but even with regard to who ate together and where the meal took place. The five-meal pattern, typical of European commercial cities around 1900, included three daily meals at home with family members (morning, midday and evening), one daily meal at the workplace with colleagues and one afternoon meal at a café with personal friends and old school-mates (at least a common practice of middle class men). This eating pattern reflected a form of societal organisation in which adults tended to work within or close by the family residence, allowing women to cook a large midday meal while working in and around the home, and men to come home in the middle of the day. By the 1930s industrialisation had implied a reorganisation of everyday life, with industrial workplaces located in the periphery of the cities, larger parts of the workforce now engaged in wage-labour rather than family owned businesses, and work-days subjected to strict definitions of time for breaks, which were now shorter. A three-meal pattern, typical for industrial societies had now emerged, where the family meal was relocated to the end of the working day, and socialising with friends to take place during weekends. Similar general shifts in meal patterns were identified in a Finnish study (Prättälä & Helminen, 1990). The three-meal pattern was observed among urban industrial workers already in the 1920s, but a more massive shift in this direction did not take place until the 1960s and 1970s. 9 Following from this, in order to understand trends of eating we need to know the broad social context and its influence on the situations in which people eat. Today’s society is often conceptualised as a post-industrial society. Individualisation, de-traditionalisation and what appears to be freedom of choice are often claimed to lie at the core of modernity (Giddens, 1994), and flexible and more individualised work life and lifestyle are characteristic of post-industrial societies. The question remains, therefore, whether a shift away from this three-meal pattern can be identified, indicating a new post-industrial eating pattern. Or, is it the case, as has been repeatedly suggested, that eating today is less structured, and that general patterns are difficult to find? Studying Nordic eating patterns: eating events and the eating system 10 When it comes to the conceptualisation and everyday concepts of eating, there are significant differences between the Nordic countries. Three of the four countries (Denmark, Norway and Sweden – plus the Swedish-speaking parts of Finland) form a language community, and they share some parts of their vocabulary for meals. However, even though the vocabulary may be shared, the concepts have different meanings, and their social and cultural implications are often quite diverse. While the term ”frukost” means breakfast in Sweden and Norway it signifies lunch in Denmark, and while the term ”middag” (meaning a cooked dinner) is ordinary in Norway and Denmark it cannot be taken for granted that the evening meal is called a ”dinner” in Finland and Sweden. The very term ”måltid” (meal) has different connotations, too. In Denmark and Norway eating open sandwiches with a topping such as cheese, liver paste or ham is generally conceptualised as a meal, whereas in Finland and Sweden the term ”meal” tends to be associated with cooked, hot meals. Which meal would be seen as the main meal of the day, would likely differ between the countries as well. 11 The variations in the meanings of vocabulary and the differences in the social and cultural implications of meal concepts entailed some difficulties for our study of how eating is patterned in the Nordic countries. Analyses at a population level with quantitative methodology call for strictly structured design for the study. We needed to construct a questionnaire which would allow us to capture the variations in how eating is organised in the four countries while at the same time posing the same questions in all countries. On account of this, we decided to avoid culturally laden concepts such as ”meal”, ”lunch” and ”dinner” and instead work on the basis of what we termed a deconstruction – reconstruction process. 12 Starting out with ideas resembling the 24-hour recall method used in dietary surveys, we first applied a deconstruction approach and asked the respondents about every occasion of eating something during the day before the interview (for practical reasons, just a beverage or only eating chewing gum, sweets, etc., were excluded). In our analyses these occasions were characterised as ”eating events”. Thus, we broadened the concept of a ”food event” (Douglas & Nicod, 1974) to use as our starting point a very inclusive concept of ”eating event” which allowed us also to focus on the social situations in which eating took place. This way we hoped to avoid making false generalisations on the basis of cultural, national or ideological prejudices or “taken-for-grantedness.” 2 As a simplifying measure, the first eating event of the day was kept separate, since Nordic “breakf (...) 13 In order to identify social patterns of eating, observations of eating events were reconstructed, based on a model of what we called ”the eating system”. The model distinguishes between three dimensions: the eating pattern, the meal format, and the social context of eating. The eating pattern is defined by time (the rhythm of eating events), the number of eating events, overall and in terms of various types of events. A basic distinction was made between ”cold” eating events (meaning that no or little cooking was involved) and ”hot” events (indicating cooked meals)2. Regarding the meal format, the composition of various types of eating events was of interest, particularly variations with regard to the degree of complexity (from simple cold snacks/meals to sophisticated meals with many courses). In describing the social context we asked where, with whom, and how (at a table, watching television, etc.) eating took place and also who did the cooking. The three dimensions of the eating system do not form a hierarchy. In principle each of them could be explored separately. The eating system includes various types of eating events, the particular composition of foods and dishes of each event and their social context, and how these various types of eating events are patterned with regard to chronology and sequence. Nordic eating in 1997 14 The data were collected in April 1997 using computer assisted telephone interviews (CATI). We interviewed representative samples of the populations in all four countries aged 15 years and above (in total, N = 4 823). The questionnaire consisted of loops where questions on the time, the structure, the contents, and the context of eating events, were recorded chronologically (Mäkelä et al., 1997). Interviewing was evenly distributed throughout the week (excluding Sundays for practical reasons) so that the records covered all days of the week except Saturdays (Kjærnes et al., 2001). A record of one day of eating allowed us to ask in detail about the specific situations of everyday life in which food is eaten. But one day would not take account of the variability of an individual’s diet and the data therefore did not allow analyses of patterns and routines at the individual level. The situational focus meant that the analytical unit was for the most part the eating event rather than the individual. 15 In the analysis, considerable recoding of the data was performed in order to construct variables in the eating system. These were then analysed according to frequency and character of eating events and according to time intervals (Kjærnes et al., 2001). The eating pattern 16 The results showed that eating in the four countries took place from early morning until late at night indicating some flexibility in eating patterns (Gronow & Jääskeläinen, 2001). Still, in all countries commonly shared eating hours could easily be identified. Figure 1 shows the daily rhythm of eating in the four countries in terms of frequencies of three types of eating events: breakfast (the first eating event), cold eating events, and hot eating events. The frequencies have been added on top of each other to show the total proportions of respondents having had something to eat during one-hour intervals throughout the day. Figure 1: Eating rhythms on weekdays in four Nordic countries Figure 1: Eating rhythms on weekdays in four Nordic countries Zoom Original (png, 90k) Zoom Original (png, 79k) Zoom Original (png, 80k) Zoom Original (png, 81k) One hour intervals (per cent of population). Blue: First eating event; Pink:cold eating event; Purple: hot eating event 17 Figure 1 demonstrates that eating patterns in the four Nordic countries were similar in some respects and different in others. On one hand, there were rhythms that were relatively uniform and distinct for each country; on the other hand, for the first part of the day the rhythm appears to be similar across the countries. Eating hours were most uniform in Denmark (i.e. with the highest peaks), least so in Finland and Sweden. During the first part of the day, the timing of the main peaks was fairly identical between the four countries. After around 3 pm the rhythms started to divert and there were clear differences in the time of the evening meal. Norwegians had an earlier evening meal than those in the other countries (at 4-5 pm), whereas the largest ”dinner” peaks were found at 5-6 pm in Finland and at 6-7 pm in Denmark and Sweden. On Sundays, eating was generally much more heterogeneous, compared to the weekday patterns. Eating started later during the day and the events were spread out more evenly over the whole day (Gronow & Jääskeläinen, 2001). These findings indicate that eating is strongly socially coordinated, first and foremost with reference to the organisation of the working day. This is not just a matter of time constraints, but represents a strong institutionalisation of eating even for people outside the workforce. 18 The peak hours shown in Figure 1 reflect conventional Nordic cultural models of three main meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner. The smaller peaks in between indicate more flexible eating in between main meals. The types of eating events that dominated at different hours were quite uniform within the countries, especially during peak hours. Some were also similar across the countries. A large majority of the respondents had a hot meal in the late afternoon/evening. However, for lunch time eating Figure 1 shows important national differences. Cold lunches dominated completely in Denmark and Norway, whereas large groups in Finland and Sweden, respectively, had a hot meal between 11 am and 1 pm. Accordingly, it was relatively common in Finland and in Sweden to have two hot meals – and a small percentage even had three. A similar pattern did not exist in Denmark and Norway. These differences demonstrate two distinct meal patterns in the Nordic region: the ”western” pattern (Denmark and Norway) with one hot meal, and the ”eastern” pattern (Finland and Sweden) with two hot meals. In the two ”western” countries sandwiches take the place of a second cooked meal, but these eating events are also strongly coordinated, with shared conventions with regard to the format and content of the meal. The meal format 19 In all four countries, people reported a range of eating events that showed both complexity and variation. Yet, certain meal formats dominated at the various hours of the day. In the morning the large majority had eaten a simple meal with a limited selection of foods and beverages. Bread was the main component in all countries, typically eaten with butter or margarine, jam, cheese, salami or liver paste. Coffee or tea, milk, and sometimes juice were common drinks. Additional eggs or foods like ham or bacon were relatively rare. Foods eaten with a spoon also occurred in Finland (typically porridge), Denmark (cereals and/or yoghurt), and Sweden (all of the above), but not in Norway. In Norway, more than 80%, and in the other countries, more than 60% of the respondents reported that their breakfast only consisted of one food item or dish (Mäkelä et al., 2001). 20 As indicated in Figure 1, the midday meal varied between the countries. As noted above, whereas in Denmark and Norway this was typically a cold meal consisting of open sandwiches, this was most often a hot cooked meal in Finland and Sweden. It is likely that this distinction is a reflection of differences in welfare policies between the four countries: in Finland and Sweden, many adults can buy a lunch for a reduced price in their workplace lunch restaurant, whereas in Denmark and Norway, no such systems are predominant. Hot lunches reflect systems with institutionalised provision of meals and cold lunches provisioning systems based on food individually brought from home. 21 In the evening a hot meal was typically eaten. Most weekday hot meals had a uniform and relatively simple structure, generally consisting only of one dish. Starters were very rare (below 10% on any day), while 25-30% of the cooked events included a dessert (typically ice cream or berries and fruit). In each of the countries different food items dominated the hot meals. Steaks and pork chops were frequent in Denmark, whereas fish was typical in Norway. Boiled vegetables such as carrots, beans, and peas dominated in Denmark and Norway, and raw vegetables such as lettuce, tomatoes and grated root crops were common in Finland and Sweden. Potatoes were the most important staple in all four countries, supplemented by bread in Finland and Sweden. This two-staple pattern was hardly found in Denmark and Norway. Hot dishes with one component were more common in Norway (such as lapskaus – a beef and potato casserole – or pizza), whereas Swedes had more meals with four or five components. In all countries, there were more components on hot dishes eaten on Sundays than on those eaten on week days. The typical four-component hot dinner plate (a centre, a staple, vegetables and trimming) which has earlier been described as the ”proper meal” format for cooked dinners in United Kingdom (Douglas & Nicod, 1974; Murcott, 1982) was found in all countries, but appeared not to be very frequent. Less than 20% of hot meals in all countries, and in Finland less than 10% represented this combination (Mäkelä, 2001). 22 Some of the differences in what was eaten appear to reflect national economic conditions. Thus, the fact that Norwegians eat more fish and Danes more meat is likely to be influenced by the characteristics of the food producing systems in these nations (Norway being a major fish, and Denmark a major pork, producer and also exporter), but some differences may depend on the differences in welfare systems. The finding that Finns and Swedes eat more uncooked vegetables than Danes and Norwegians may be due to fact that the hot lunches in Finland and Sweden that have been supported by welfare services are subjected to regulatory norms suggesting bread and salads, for example, to be served with the meals for health reasons, whereas meals in Denmark and Norway have traditionally been regarded as entirely private matters. The social context of eating 23 In general, incomes in the Nordic countries are high compared to other countries, large proportions of the populations go to work or school during the days, many participate in sports and cultural life, the age for retirement is high, and many live alone. It could therefore be expected that much eating would take place outside the private homes, in the public sphere of restaurants, cafés, etc. In the 1997 study, however, the majority of eating events took place at home, eating at the workplace coming second. Eating in other people’s homes and eating out in cafés or restaurants constituted only minor proportions of everyday eating. Frequent eating at restaurants, cafés, bars and fast-food outlets, often seen as a characteristic of modern life, did not show in the data. Eating in places like fast food outlets or in the street was negligible. 24 At almost all times of the day, more people had eaten at home than in any other place (Holm, 2001b). In the middle of the day, most eating took place at workplaces or schools. Most of this workplace eating appeared as organised social events, usually in a canteen or separate eating room. However, in Denmark more people ate at their working place (the desk, the building site) indicating somewhat less institutionalisation of workplace eating in this country. Eating at a café or restaurant during work hours was generally rare, though slightly more frequent in Sweden. 25 The Nordic eating system found in 1997 was a mixture of events taking place alone, with other household members, with colleagues (lunch), and with friends. A considerable proportion of breakfast eating took place alone, even in multiple person households. Those who lived with a family usually shared the evening meal with their family members. Eating in the company of friends appeared to play a very small role, suggesting that such events were not a frequent everyday habit. The tendency to eat with friends was somewhat more common during the weekend than on weekdays and most often it would take place in one’s own or other people’s homes. While individual eating took place throughout the day, the socially shared peak meal hours in each country were, to a large degree, social events. Moreover, on Sundays, when meals were usually not structured by working hours, family eating dominated, even for a large proportion of those who lived alone. The data thus showed that even though a considerable part of eating took place alone, eating was also still a social matter in the sense that at least some of the events during the day took place in the company of other people. A pattern of eating primarily in solitude was found first of all among respondents who lived alone and more so among the elderly than in younger age groups. 26 According to qualitative studies, family meals have great significance and meaning as symbols and operators of family cohesion, in the Nordic as well as in other countries (Bugge and Døving, 2000; DeVault, 1991; Ekström, 1990; Iversen & Holm, 1999; Mäkelä, 1996). Our analyses demonstrated that family eating was still common in 1997. Further, it turned out that on the day before the interview more than half (between 54% and 64%) of those living in multiple person households had at least one hot meal, where the entire household ate together, and ate the same food (Holm, 2001a). This was the case both in households with and without children. 27 Most of the eating at home took place at a kitchen or dinner table (Holm, 2001b). A relatively frequent alternative was a coffee table/sofa. Television sets are usually placed within view from the sofa in the Nordic countries, and evening snacks seemed to be brought to the coffee table, sometimes even the evening meal (most often in Norway, least so in Finland). This was confirmed when inquiring what went on while eating, where about one fifth of eating events at home took place while watching TV. Pizza with the family in front of the TV has been described as a shared family ritual at the end of the week (see e.g. Bugge & Døving, 2000). Stability and change 28 In her report on “The Problem of Changing Food Habits” from 1941, Margaret Mead describes the cultural anthropological conception of food habits: “Food habits are seen as the culturally standardised set of behaviors in regard to food manifested by individuals who have been reared within a given cultural tradition. These behaviors are seen as systematically interrelated with other standardised behaviors in the same culture” (Mead, 2008:18). Seen in this perspective, food habits in the Nordic countries must be expected to change as other practices and institutions change: the rhythm of daily routine tasks such as work, sleep, leisure activities, and the size and composition of households are important examples of such practices and institutions which may be expected to change rather slowly. But public welfare policies and commercial services may shift more rapidly, and new ideas and discourses including and addressing the moralities and meanings associated to food may change norms and conventions in society. Thus, what is eaten, when, where, with, and prepared by whom may change, but the role of food as a mediator of social interaction and a key signifier of social groups and identity is likely to remain stable. Conclusion: A modern eating system – or a phase of transition? 29 In the 1997 study, our interest was on the influence of modern everyday life on the rhythms, structures, and the social organisation of food and eating. The study demonstrated that the eating system in the Nordic countries was varied and multifaceted with regard to all these three aspects of the eating system (Kjærnes, 2001). While flexibility and individual eating were evidently part of the picture in 1997, social coordination of rhythms and social interaction around eating were prevailing traits. Our results thus questioned the proposition that modern eating is characterized by “destructuration”, individualisation and globalisation. A disappearance of traditional features and dissolution of the sociality of eating could not be identified as dominant features. A more mixed picture emerged, confirming that eating was very much a social activity characterised by nationally different, but distinct, shared rhythms of eating. Eating patterns were strongly influenced by the ways in which Nordic welfare societies are organized in terms of working life, food distribution systems, and the family institution. 30 Considerable and extensive changes have taken place in the Nordic societies during the post-war period, the large increase in female participation in the workforce being one such important change, and the publicly financed institutionalized welfare systems, another. In this perspective, the observed family and home centered eating might be interpreted as representing a “cultural lag”. 31 Even so, it is not easy to foresee the direction of modernisation tendencies. For example, the meal formats appeared to be relatively simple, but from this study alone we cannot judge whether this was the case even in earlier periods, or, whether this relates to female wage-labour and signifies a shift in the division of labour between private households and industry. Will food industry and services increasingly take over every-day cooking? At the same time long-term tendencies of growing incomes, more varied supplies of fresh as well as processed food, and a highly pervasive gastronomic discourse might lead to more complexity of everyday eating rather than increasing simplicity and “convenience”. While we know from other sources (Groth et al., 2001; Roos et al., 1996) that there are considerable social inequalities in nutritional aspects of dietary habits within the countries, the meal patterns and formats observed in our study were socially quite homogeneous within the countries. 3 The new project is financed by the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities (...) 32 The 1997 study provided a snapshot of eating at one particular point in time (April 1997). On the basis of this data we could therefore not say much about significant trends in the modernization of everyday eating. Eating may have changed in the Nordic societies since late 1990s. Observations from daily life, from media, and from the looks of our cities suggest that the availability of ready to eat food has increased and so has the interest in gastronomy and in food related health and ethics. Again, such observations may be misleading. So in order to discuss change and stability informed by systematic empirical observation, we executed a follow-up survey that took place in April 2012, i.e., 15 years later than the first study.3 33 By basing the new study on corresponding representative samples of the Nordic populations and by using a largely identical questionnaire, the new study allows us to make comparison across time and to analyse whether or not the patterns of uniformity and flexibility found in the 1997 study is a testimony of the composite character of modern post-industrial eating patterns or a reflection of an ongoing change. The new study will also allow us to evaluate whether the changing economic conditions and welfare systems have affected socio-economic discrepancies of eating. Last but not least, the new study enables addressing the potential impact on eating patterns of contemporary debates on, e.g., healthy eating, sustainability, and climate change. Eating in Italy How Italians eat Italy - Culture ?Guide ?Forums ?Articles Here's a quick guide on Italian eating habits Eating in Italy Breakfast (7.00 – 11.00) This is always a light meal. May consist of a cappuccino or coffe & brioche (type of croissant) at a bar (often standing up) or coffee and biscuits and possibly a piece of fruit at home.The brioche can be plain ( liscia), filled with jam ( con marmellata) or confectioners custard ( con crema), even occasionally with chocolate ( con cioccolata). Note: For Italians cappuccino is a breakfast drink and most do not drink it after 11 am. As a foreigner though you can do what you like! Lunch (12.30 – 14.00 in the north, 13.30-14.30 South ) Antipasti (starters) light starters typically salumi (cold hams, salami) Primo piatto (1st course) usually rice ( risotto) or pasta (or, more rarely, soup) Secondo piatto (2nd course) meat or fish Contorni (side dish) vegetables ( vedure) or salad ( insalata) Needs to be ordered separately Dolce (desert) includes cakes, ice creams etc but very Often seasonal fresh fruit Caffé espresso During the week most Italians will eat at least a primo and secondo piatto and probably fruit as well. For a special lunch all the above will be eaten. For a very quick snack on the run, they will have a panino (filled roll) at the bar. Typical fillings are mozzarella cheese and pomodori (tomatoes) called "caprese" or prosciutto cotto (cooked ham) or prosciutto crudo (raw ham). Merenda (16.00) snack for children (bread, fruit, yoghurt, or ice-cream) Dinner (20.00 – 22.00) Depending on the person, dinner may be a lighter meal e.g. salad or either il primo or il secondo piatto. Many Italians (especially if eating out) will have the full works again.Going out for a pizza to a pizzeria (where else?) is also very popular. Many places deliver or do carry out. CustomsHistoryTapasRiceChurrosTortillaRecipesInternational Food Spanish Eating Customs: Meals A normal day's breakfast- or desayuno- typically consists merely of a cup of coffee, although it's also commonplace to accompany your steaming café con leche with a croissant or other pastry. While an American traditional breakfast has pancakes, bacon, and eggs, the Spanish "traditional" breakfast consists of the vastly popular churros, served sprinkled with sugar or dunked in hot chocolate. Spaniards eat their lunch, or comida, between 2:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon. Serving as the day's main meal, it is traditionally quite a bit larger than the dinner meal, or cena. A typical lunch will have several courses. The first course is the lighter part of the meal, usually consisting of a salad or soup, while the second course is normally your typical fish or meat dish. A dessert can be a simple piece of fruit, a typical Spanish flan, or a sweet pastry or cake. While there are of course many people who eat full meals, the Spanish dinner (cena) is traditionally much smaller than the midday comida. It often consisting of something lighter like a salad, a sandwich, or a selection of tapas. Spaniards eat late for this final meal of the day- even more so on weekends and during the summer- sitting down to eat anytime from 9:00 until 11:00 in the evening. Spanish coffee Spanish food Spanish Eating Customs: Tapas A tradition begun long ago in the southern city of Seville, Spaniards have since perfected the art of snacking. Going out for tapas consists of travelling from bar to bar and sharing plates of the bars' specialties with a small group of friends. Learn more about tapas! Spanish Eating Customs: Sobremesa The name says it all. The word sobremesa literally means "over the table" and refers to the art of conversation after a meal. Instead of taking the last bite and leaving, Spaniards often stay at the table conversing, savoring each other's company, and perhaps sharing a drink. If good conversation ensues, be prepared to stay for hours! Spanish Eating Customs: Siesta No, it's not a myth. Yes, the infamous siesta really does exist. It began long ago as after eating the large mid-day meal farmworkers needed to rest and digest before going back out to work the fields. While this daily break doesn't necessarily include a nap, businesses and stores do shut down for about two hours and many people return home to eat with their families. El desayuno (Breakfast) Between 7:00am and 10:00am Breakfast in Mexico can range from a simple cup of coffee to a huge spread featuring “huevos rancheros” (corn tortillas filled with fried eggs and a sauce of chili, tomato & onion). Popular breakfast foods include sweet breads, tropical fruits, toast, granola and yogurt. La comida (Lunch) Between 1:30pm and 4:00pm In Mexico, lunch is the main meal of the day- expect to eat a lot! La comida typically consists of an appetizer, a soup or salad and the main course: seafood, meat or poulty, rice and/ or beans and of course some hot tortillas. Get ready to chat before, during and after eating, as lunch tends to be a leisurely meal La Cena (Dinner) Between 8:00pm and 9:00pm. Eaten in the evening, la cena is the lighter meal of the day in Mexico, often consisting of soup or tacos. Meals of the Day in Russia Daily Russian meals Borshch, the first course for lunch Russia has its own ideas about how and what to eat. Russian people like to eat home-cooked food, and rarely buy prepared meals at supermarkets. Usually Russians eat three times a day and prefer potatoes, which are eaten almost daily. The three meals of the day in Russia are zavtrak, obed and uzhin. With the exception of zavtrak, there are no exact English translations for these daily meals. For example, the second meal, obed, is served around 2 p.m. and can be called either "lunch" or "dinner" in English. The third meal, uzhin, is served after 6 p.m. and can called either "dinner" or "supper". Breakfast - The first meal Russians usually have an early breakfast at about seven or eight in the morning right before leaving to work. It is very common for Russian families to have kasha (a type of porridge made from different grains), butterbrots (a kind of sandwich made of a single slice of bread and one topping such as butter or ham), boiled or fried eggs, tvorog (similar to cottage cheese) or cereal for breakfast. Coffee or tea is an essential drink for many Russians. Many people eat a toast with cheese and drink juice for breakfast. Russian lunch - The main meal Traditionally, lunch (???´?) is the main meal of the day in Russia. During working days, Russians usually have a one-hour lunch break (???´?????? ??????´?) somewhere between 1 and 3 p.m. This is the time when lots of cafés and restaurants offer lunch specials (??´????????? ???´? or ??´????-????) where people can buy an inexpensive meal for less than US $10. A classic Russian lunch includes hot soup as the first course (??´???? ???´?? or simply ??´????) and meat with potatoes, porridge or pasta as the second course (?????´?). This is then followed by the third course (???´???) which is usually a drink such as kompot (a non-alcoholic drink made by boiling fruit in water), tea, coffee or juice with an optional cake or chocolates. Many Russians who work in the office go for lunch to a nearby café or restaurant, while others bring lunch from home. Some companies order food for lunch directly to the office for their employees. Dinner - The third meal Dinner (?´???) is another important meal in Russia. It is the second largest meal after lunch. The whole family eats dinner together after everyone returns home from work and school, which is usually around 7 or 8 p.m. For many Russians, dinner is the only time when the whole family can interact with each other. Families commonly watch TV together during dinner to keep track of the latest news. A typical Russian dinner consists of one or two appetizers and a hot main dish, which might be potatoes, meat, or fish. After dinner, Russians like to drink tea with sugar or jam. A few peculiarities of Russian cuisine In Russia, there is always bread on the table. There are special feelings that Russians have towards rye bread (?????´? ????), also known as "black" bread (?????? ????) because of its dark color. "Black" bread is considered a traditional food in Russian homes and every foreigner absolutely needs to try it. Another traditional food is kvass (????) -- a fermented beverage made from rye bread. Kvass has very low alcohol content not exceeding 1% and therefore it is enjoyed by people of all ages including children. This carbonated drink is best consumed cold to help the hot summer days pass by. It is also used as ingredient in the traditional cold soup called okroshka (????´???). Russian vodka (??´???) is usually drunk on holidays in the circle of family and friends. A good occasion to drink vodka are official holidays like the New Year's Day, birthdays and weddings. Russian Meals Vocabulary ??´????? - breakfast ???´? - lunch or dinner ?´??? - dinner or supper ???´?????? ??????´? - lunch break ??´????????? ???´? - set lunch, lunch special, prix fixe ??´????-???? - lunch special, prix fixe ??´???? ???´?? - first course (full name) ??´???? - first course (short name) ?????´? - second course (short name) ???´??? - third course (short name) ?????´? ???? - rye bread ?????? ???? - rye bread, brown bread, "black" bread ???? - kvass ????´??? - okroshka ??´??? - vodka Breakfast as we know it didn't exist for large parts of history. The Romans didn't really eat it, usually consuming only one meal a day around noon, says food historian Caroline Yeldham. In fact, breakfast was actively frowned upon. "The Romans believed it was healthier to eat only one meal a day," she says. "They were obsessed with digestion and eating more than one meal was considered a form of gluttony. This thinking impacted on the way people ate for a very long time." A brief history of brunch Eggs Benedict?Brunch is a portmanteau of "breakfast" and "lunch(eon)" ?It is thought the meal has its roots in British 19th Century hunt breakfasts - lavish multi-course meals ?In 1895, Guy Beringer wrote a column for Hunter's Weekly arguing the case for inventing a whole new meal for late Sunday mornings, mainly for Saturday night partygoers ?The following year he was mentioned in an issue of Punch, which announced "to be fashionable nowadays we must 'brunch'" ?While the concept is British, it's the Americans who really embraced it ?It reportedly became popular in 1930s Chicago when film stars and the like stopped off in the city between trains for a late morning meal ?Sunday brunch became even more popular in the US after World War II, when there was a decline in American churchgoers ?This trend continued as the more formal 1950s gave way to the '60s ?Back then brunch menus included clam cocktails and calf's liver with hash browns, nowadays it's more likely to be Eggs Benedict Source: The Smithsonian How to cook Eggs Benedict Try the stress-free full English breakfast In the Middle Ages monastic life largely shaped when people ate, says food historian Ivan Day. Nothing could be eaten before morning Mass and meat could only be eaten for half the days of the year. It's thought the word breakfast entered the English language during this time and literally meant "break the night's fast". Religious ritual also gave us the full English breakfast. On Collop Monday, the day before Shrove Tuesday, people had to use up meat before the start of Lent. Much of that meat was pork and bacon as pigs were kept by many people. The meat was often eaten with eggs, which also had to be used up, and the precursor of the full English breakfast was born. But at the time it probably wasn't eaten in the morning. In about the 17th Century it is believed that all social classes started eating breakfast, according to chef Clarissa Dickson Wright. After the restoration of Charles II, coffee, tea and dishes like scrambled eggs started to appear on the tables of the wealthy. By the late 1740s, breakfast rooms also started appearing in the homes of the rich. This morning meal reached new levels of decadence in aristocratic circles in the 19th Century, with the fashion for hunting parties that lasted days, even weeks. Up to 24 dishes would be served for breakfast. The Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th Century regularised working hours, with labourers needing an early meal to sustain them at work. All classes started to eat a meal before going to work, even the bosses. At the turn of the 20th Century, breakfast was revolutionised once again by American John Harvey Kellogg. He accidentally left some boiled maize out and it went stale. He passed it through some rollers and baked it, creating the world's first cornflake. He sparked a multi-billion pound industry. By the 1920s and 1930s the government was promoting breakfast as the most important meal of the day, but then World War II made the usual breakfast fare hard to get. But as Britain emerged from the post-war years into the economically liberated 1950s, things like American toasters, sliced bread, instant coffee and pre-sugared cereals invaded the home. Breakfast as we now know it. Lunch Lunch menu board The terminology around eating in the UK is still confusing. For some "lunch" is "dinner" and vice versa. From the Roman times to the Middle Ages everyone ate in the middle of the day, but it was called dinner and was the main meal of the day. Lunch as we know it didn't exist - not even the word. During the Middle Ages daylight shaped mealtimes, says Day. With no electricity, people got up earlier to make use of daylight. Workers had often toiled in the fields from daybreak, so by midday they were hungry. "The whole day was structured differently than it is today," says Day. "People got up much earlier and went to bed much earlier." By midday workers had often worked for up to six hours. They would take a quick break and eat what was known as a "beever" or "noonshine", usually bread and cheese. As artificial light developed, dinner started to shift later in the day for the wealthier, as a result a light meal during the day was needed. The origins of the word "lunch" are mysterious and complicated, says Day. "Lunch was a very rare word up until the 19th Century," he says. For the love of sandwiches Man eating a sandwich?Britons buy about three billion ready-made sandwiches a year ?We are each thought to eat to about 200 sandwiches a year ?A sandwich is the lunch option for 75% of us, says market research analyst Mintel ?The retail sandwich market is worth £6bn ?Britain's favourite sandwich is chicken salad Source: British Sandwich Association Discover classic British sandwich recipes Traditional British recipes One theory is that it's derived from the word "nuncheon", an old Anglo-Saxon word which meant a quick snack between meals that you can hold in your hands. It was used around the late 17th Century, says Yeldham. Others theorise that it comes from the word "nuch" which was used around in the 16th and 17th Century and means a big piece of bread. But it's the French custom of "souper" in the 17th Century that helped shaped what most of us eat for lunch today. It became fashionable among the British aristocracy to copy the French and eat a light meal in the evening. It was a more private meal while they gamed and womanised, says Day. It's the Earl of Sandwich's famous late-night snack from the 1750s that has come to dominate the modern lunchtime menu. One evening he ordered his valet to bring him cold meats between some bread. He could eat the snack with just one hand and wouldn't get grease on anything. Whether he was wrapped up in an all-night card game or working at his desk is not clear, both have been suggested. But whatever he was doing, the sandwich was born. At the time lunch, however, was still known "as an accidental happening between meals", says food historian Monica Askay. Again, it was the Industrial Revolution that helped shape lunch as we know it today. Middle and lower class eating patterns were defined by working hours. Many were working long hours in factories and to sustain them a noon-time meal was essential. Pies were sold on stalls outside factories. People also started to rely on mass-produced food as there was no room in towns and cities for gardens to keep a pig pen or grow their own food. Many didn't even have a kitchen. "Britain was the first country in the world to feed people with industrialised food," says Day. The ritual of taking lunch became ingrained in the daily routine. In the 19th Century chop houses opened in cities and office workers were given one hour for lunch. But as war broke out in 1939 and rationing took hold, the lunch was forced to evolve. Work-based canteens became the most economical way to feed the masses. It was this model that was adopted by schools after the war. The 1950s brought a post-War world of cafes and luncheon vouchers. The Chorleywood Process, a new way of producing bread, also meant the basic loaf could be produced more cheaply and quickly than ever. The takeaway sandwich quickly began to fill the niche as a fast, cheap lunch choice. Today the average time taken to eat lunch - usually in front of the computer - is roughly 15 minutes, according to researchers at the University of Westminster. The original meaning of lunch or "nuncheon" as a small, quick snack between proper meals is just as apt now as it ever was. Dinner Family dinner 1938 Dinner was the one meal the Romans did eat, even if it was at a different time of day. In the UK the heyday of dinner was in the Middle Ages. It was known as "cena", Latin for dinner. The aristocracy ate formal, outrageously lavish dinners around noon. Despite their reputation for being unruly affairs, they were actually very sophisticated, with strict table manners. Food for Richard II's 1387 dinner ?Ingredients included 14 salted oxen ?84lb salted venison ?12 boar, including heads ?120 sheep heads ?400 rabbits ?50 swans ?150 castrated roosters ?1,200 pigeons ?210 geese ?11,000 eggs ?12 gallons of cream Source: Recipewise Discover more about Richard II Try out Fanny Cradock's recipes They were an ostentatious display of wealth and power, with cooks working in the kitchen from dawn to get things ready, says Yeldham. With no electricity cooking dinner in the evening was not an option. Peasants ate dinner around midday too, although it was a much more modest affair. As artificial lighting spread, dinner started to be eaten later and later in the day. It was in the 17th Century that the working lunch started, where men with aspirations would network. The middle and lower classes eating patterns were also defined by their working hours. By the late 18th Century most people were eating three meals a day in towns and cities, says Day. By the early 19th Century dinner for most people had been pushed into the evenings, after work when they returned home for a full meal. Many people, however, retained the traditional "dinner hour" on a Sunday. The hallowed family dinner we are so familiar with became accessible to all in the glorious consumer spending spree of the 1950s. New white goods arrived from America and the dream of the wife at home baking became a reality. Then the TV arrived. TV cook Fanny Cradock brought the 1970s Cordon Bleu dinner to life. Many middle-class women were bored at home and found self-expression by competing with each other over who could hold the best dinner party. The death knell for the family dinner supposedly sounded in 1986, when the first microwave meal came on to the market. But while a formal family dinner may be eaten by fewer people nowadays, the dinner party certainly isn't over - fuelled by the phenomenal sales of recipe books by celebrity chefs. Interview 1 Virginie Amilien: Unni, you have been working with sociological research on food in Norway for 30 years, and you were the project coordinator and editor of the final report “Eating Patterns- A day in the life of Nordic Peoples” in 2001. The comparative approach in this project gave a unique opportunity to study the basic eating structures in the Nordic countries, which are often taken for granted. You recorded when, where, what, and with whom food was taken (for a further description of the study, see Holm et al.’s article in this issue). 2 Unni Kjærnes: Actually this should have been published as a proper book. Internationally there is still a demand for this report, which is now circulated as photocopies. However at that time, in 2000, there was little interest among Norwegian publishers for this topic. The Norwegian interest in the topics brought up in the report is larger nowadays, but still moderate. But, let’s speak about the results. 3 The most striking result was how different the eating patterns in the four Nordic countries were, considering our close historical and social connections. The Danish eating patterns were more “family centered”, with all family members gathering around the dinner table more often, with meat on their plate. Swedish patterns were, on the other hand, focused on lunch time, which was a well-organized hot meal accompanied by a salad, taken outside the home. Finnish eating was somewhat similar to the Swedish pattern, with lunch outside the home as a key feature, but in Finland there was more traditional cooking at home. Compared to the other three countries, Norwegian patterns seemed more simple, modest, and uniform in structure. 1 The following paragraphs, until the next question, are directly based on the report: KJÆRNES, U., E (...) 4 In the report you can read that1 the comparative analyses of the Nordic countries revealed that although they are quite similar in terms of political history, culture etc., their food habits are basically very different, even under the present influence of modern welfare institutions and globalised markets, technologies, and communication. Our idea was to study supposedly traditional national differences as opposed to more general characteristics of modern societies. The findings indicated that the Nordic eating systems clearly have both traditional and modern elements. 5 Country of residence is of relevance both for what we have called the ‘institutionalisation of eating’, i.e., various forms of food provision and food policy, and through more general features of social structure and cultural norms. For the factors we have studied, country of residence has larger impact than the respondent’s social position and living situation within each country. The findings seem to indicate a complex interrelation between cultural conventions and institutionalised forms of food provision – through retailing as well as public catering. This was most evident in the solutions to lunch away from home during work/school hours, with open-faced sandwiches brought from home dominating in Denmark and Norway and cooked, hot meals being much more prevalent in Sweden and Finland. Eating out in restaurants, cafés, and fast food outlets played a marginal part in everyday eating patterns in all four countries. Thus, the division between private and public eating, being relevant primarily for eating at work, was influenced mainly by nation-specific institutional solutions. 6 VA: We understand that this comparative project has also given you a new and original insight into Norwegian food culture. Would you please tell us what the study told about Norwegian food culture? 7 As mentioned earlier, the records pertaining to eating on “the day before” among the Norwegian informants indicated a highly modest way of eating. There was a three meal structure: In the morning, a sandwich-based breakfast was eaten at home, often alone. Lunch was eaten at work, and consisted of a couple of open-faced sandwiches brought from home, while dinner during the work week was an early and quick family meal, requiring quite simple cooking (such as meatballs with potatoes and carrots). Some informants also had a fourth evening meal, based on sandwiches. A demonstration of this simplicity is the limited selection of vegetables that people had for dinner, where one third of the respondents had eaten carrots on the day before. 8 There was another peculiarity with regard to vegetable eating: Finnish and Swedish respondents ate more raw vegetables used in salads, while the Danish and Norwegian respondents more often ate vegetables that are normally cooked, such as broccoli, carrots or cauliflower. This East/ West distinction may be explained by the different lunch traditions. The institutionalized hot lunches in Finland and Sweden always included a salad, so people seem to have internalized the use of salad as part of cooked meal. Norway and Denmark, on the other hand, have kept the more traditional way of boiling vegetables. 9 Another observation of cultural differences, causing or caused by the disparate lunch traditions, is the different status of sandwiches in Nordic countries: they are regarded as a snack in Finland and Sweden, and as a proper meal in Norway and Denmark. 10 VA: Is this an indication that people in Norway are eating less than in other Nordic countries? 11 UK: There is always a methodological difficulty in recording what people actually are eating. This is not only matter of remembering, or a moral issue about what you want to reveal about your eating patterns, but it is also a conceptual issue in terms of what informants mean by a “breakfast”, or a “snack” or even by “eating” or “food”. In the analyses, we distinguished between five types of eating events, depending on the food components and cooking. These types represent a sort of hierarchy in terms of complexity: 12 1) a snack event (an ice-cream or an apple , 2) a cake event (a cake, pastry, etc.; may also include a snack), 3) cold food eating events – a cold meal (sandwich, cold cuts, a salad; may also include a snack and/or a cake), 4) breakfast, i.e., the first eating event of the day (often cold foods, like sandwiches or breakfast cereals, but may also involve cooked dishes like porridge) and finally 5) a hot meal (hot indicates that cooking has been involved and that the food is eaten hot). 13 We found that Norwegian respondents reported fewer eating events of the “snacking” type, compared to the other Nordic countries. I wanted to check this observation with other types of data. I collected sales data on food items typically eaten as snacks, such as sweetened soft drinks, chocolate, and salty snacks. The results were revealing: while our records showed that Norwegian respondents ate less those items on the day before, the Norwegian sales data on consumption per capita were the highest of all Nordic countries. This disparity could be translated in moral terms, saying that Norwegians “make” their diet “more proper” (but why would Swedes be less moral than Norwegians?). However, we can also interpret the findings within a wider, cultural framework. Our colleague, Runar Døving, has suggested that in Norway the concepts of “food” and “eating” are reserved for proper meals only. In this perspective, food eaten outside this context is not regarded as “food”, but perhaps linked to “cosy situations” (“kos” in Norwegian) or a treat. So snack type items would not be regarded as relevant for a record of eating on the day before. 14 VA: That was really interesting! But this study was conducted 15 years ago, as described in your common article in this issue (Holm et. al.). Do you think we have the same patterns today, or is there any difference? 15 Some patterns are linked to basic structures in our societies which are usually quite stable, linked to family patterns, everyday time tables, and economic inequalities. Other aspects are more flexible, such as the selection of food products. A new survey, coordinated by Professor Lotte Holm at Copenhagen University, was conducted this year, and we will explore this in details. Fifteen years is a long time and we don’t know. 16 VA: Wonderful. So I hope that you will present an article with new results to Anthropology of Food in a couple of years?? But before we conclude this interview, would you say a few words about what we, in this issue, called “Norwegian food culture”? 17 UK: “Food culture” is a wide and flexible concept. Actually there is not “one” discourse on food culture in Norway. We already noticed it when we worked on the anthology called “Den kultiverte maten” [the “cultivated food” from 2007, Amilien et al. (eds)]. In general, there has not been that much research about food and culture. Research at our own institution, The National Institute for Consumer Research (SIFO), represents a certain continuity, where the first food social scientific projects were introduced in the 1980’s. It was SIFO that brought the concept of food culture into the national academic debate. But in parallel people from various disciplines , such as ethnologists and socio-anthropologists, have addressed topics related to food culture. Courses on food culture are seldom at the university level, but in the recent years we have seen an increasing interest in food culture programs at university colleges around Norway. In addition, there are occasional individual contributions with little cross-referencing, for example the recent book Mat/Viten [ “Food/ knowledge” from 2010, Uglevik et.al (eds.)]. In Norway there is a striking contrast between the limited research on food culture and food as a political issue, which has been an ongoing scientific debate for decades, addressing primarily production and health issues. 18 VA: Yes, there is a striking contrast, not only within the research community but also in public discourse. But don’t you think that those discourses are embedded in each other? 19 UK: I definitely agree. Public discourse directs attention primarily to health politics or agricultural politics, whereas the food culture issues that are brought up are mainly relegated to the occasional recipes, travel, etc. I think it’s important to distinguish between food culture in public discourse and food culture as an academic field. Funding of research on food culture is often based on political motivations, such as the promotion of food of Norwegian origin (as shown in Atle Hegnes article in this issue) or healthy eating (as illustrated by Anita Borch and Gun Roos or Silje Skuland and Siv Elin Ånestad in this issue too.) The emphasis has been on products and product development, much less on culinary practices the social or cultural meanings of everyday food and eating outside commercial contexts.