Food for Gathering
September 12th 2009 05:54
Sharing a meal with friends is one of the greatest past-times
Even work meetings are much nicer over breakfast, coffee, lunch or dinner. So, why is eating with others such an important part of our social past-time?
When you think about it we do most of our special and important occasions, such as Christmas, birthdays, meeting the parents, over the dinner table. Also our most mundane of meals are much nicer when eaten with others.
One of the saddest aspects of today's society is we are often too busy, too much in a hurry to actually sit down and eat with other people. Even sitting down to stop and eat is a chore. How many times have people started and continued a collection of fast food wrappers in their cars because it's so much easier to go through a drive-thru for their meal and eaten it in the car on the way to that next important appointment?
I have two very distinct memories of sharing a meal with friends when I lived overseas. The first was in the USA, I stayed with a friend just outside of San Francisco. We had been out for the day and wanted to go somewhere for dinner. The US is peppered with fast food outlets everywhere, so one of them was our place of choice to eat. Instead of stopping the car, getting out and eating in the 'restaurant', we went to the drive thru and raced home to eat it. That was our dinner out. I guess I should be thankful I wasn't eating it on my own.
The other memory was in Spain, where everyone slept in late and would eventually get together to have breakfast which was always leisurely and it was probably near lunchtime before we got up from the table after endless cups of coffee and huge long chats.
I know which was the most enjoyable.
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