Food Choices in Mixed Families

Abstract

The third findings chapter explores the food choices of mixed families. The food choices and the sharing of meals is especially important to examine in mixed families because it is through these ritualised practises of everyday life, including the sharing of food around the table, that identities are constructed, culinary traditions are transmitted, food habits are formed, and palates are developed. This chapter begins with with an exploration of scholarship surrounding the relationships between food and various aspects of life, including marriage, motherhood, children, and migration. In the analysis of the data, themes such as weaning, food habits and choices, the horizontal transmission of culture through food, the division of labour surrounding foodwork, and table etiquette are discussed. Finally, through analyses of the meal observations, we see how food and mealtimes are negotiated in mixed families and how the families are, instead of choosing one culinary heritage over another, creating a unique “new joint family food system” (Bove, et al. 2003) while doing mixed family.