Comparing commensality: Festive eating occasions among French, German and Spanish young adults

Abstract

This essay explores festive eating occasions among French, German and Spanish young adults. It draws from in-depth interviews with 83 young adults of these three nationalities living in one of these countries, as well as participant, direct and ‘floating’ observation of their eating events in Lyon, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, and Madrid. The paper sheds light on commonalities and differences between their festive forms of commensality in relationship with their position in the life course, their generation, nationality, and the local contexts in which their practices, and more broadly, their lives take place. Festive commensality in the framework of cross-cultural research emerges as a key and critical notion for comparing eating arrangements and systems. The focus on commensal practices of a specific and crucial age group has made it possible to take a life course perspective to cross-national research in this study, which opens up an interesting way of conveying dynamism in comparison of food-related practices.