Table Manners Research Articles

Table Manners

Why do we eat the way we do? It is a simple question, but one that is rooted in a deep history of social customs and politics. This paper surveys the past thousand years of table manners through looking at popular courtesy handbooks both translated and written in late medieval Western Europe. It has been argued that table manners are imposed by the royalty and the upper echelons of society in order to have control over the functions of the middle and lower classes, but this paper extends this idea to explore how the population sought to either make fun of or emulate their higher ups. By looking at the history of table manners a great deal can be explored regarding the way in which medieval peoples thought about how they ate, and why it mattered.

The Gulper and the Slurper: A Lexicon of Mistakes to Avoid While Eating with Ottoman Gentlemen

Abstract This article examines the material culture and social etiquette of elite dining in the early modern Ottoman Empire. The challenges of eating with others were numerous, as the sixteenth-century Damascene scholar Badr al-Din al-Ghazzi (d. 1577) showed in painful and hilarious ways in his treatise entitled Table Manners (Adab al-Muʾakala). One set of problems stemmed from the objects structuring the meal, especially the relative dearth of crockery and cutlery. Far from making dining experiences simpler and more straightforward, as scholars have sometimes suggested, this necessitated greater cooperation between diners and made them vulnerable to individual misbehavior. Another set of problems arose from the material qualities of food, where sources of pleasure, handled poorly, could easily trigger disgust. The self-discipline that Ghazzi promoted in his manual offered a partial solution to these difficulties, but not a solution equally available to all.

The Psychology of Mukbang Watching: A Scoping Review of the Academic and Non-academic Literature

Internet technology has facilitated the use of a wide variety of different activities and applications in online contexts. Despite a large amount of research regarding these activities including online social networking, online gaming, online shopping, online sex, and online gambling, very little is known regarding online eating shows called ‘mukbang’ (i.e. a portmanteau of the South Korean words for ‘eating’ [‘meokneun’] and ‘broadcast’ [‘bangsong’] that refers to online broadcasts where individuals eat food and interact with the viewers). The present study carried out a scoping review of the academic and non-academic literature (i.e. peer-reviewed publications, academic theses, and the print media) in order to examine the psychological characteristics of mukbang viewers and consequences of mukbang watching. A total of 11 academic outputs from different disciplinary fields (mainly peer-reviewed papers) and 20 articles from national UK newspapers were identified following an extensive literature search. Results from the scoping review indicated that viewers use mukbang watching for social reasons, sexual reasons, entertainment, eating reasons, and/or as an escapist compensatory strategy. Furthermore, mukbang watching appears to have both beneficial consequences (e.g., diminishing feelings of loneliness and social isolation, constructing a virtual social community,) and non-beneficial consequences (e.g., altering food preferences, eating habits, and table manners, promoting disordered eating, potential excess, and ‘addiction’). Implications of the study and directions for future research are also discussed.

Sweep Out the Ashes: A Novel by Mary Clearman Blew

Reviewed by: Sweep Out the Ashes: A Novel by Mary Clearman Blew Evelyn Funda Mary Clearman Blew, Sweep Out the Ashes: A Novel. Lincoln: Bison Books, 2019. 276 pp. Paper, $19.95; e-book, $19.95. Unearthing history is a consistent thread in Mary Blew's latest novel, Sweep Out the Ashes, in which twenty-eight-year-old western American historian Diana Karnov has come to the northern [End Page 208] Montana town of Versailles to teach at the town's small college. While the job is what brings her there, she is also there to learn about her own personal history, namely to find her father and discover the truth about her mother's disappearance and death shortly after her birth. Set in the historical moment of 1975, the novel also explores the status of women in academia during the period when the Equal Rights Amendment was being debated for ratification in the states. Additionally, as Diana discovers the largely untold stories of Native peoples in the West from her students and Jake Le Tellier, the Métis man who becomes her lover, Blew portrays the shifting historiography of western American studies in the decade before "new western history" approaches fully took hold. Diana's life is full of ironies. For all of her feelings about women's equality and protests when men open doors for her, in the first half of the novel she seems in constant need of rescuing. As if recasting The Virginian's Miss Molly Wood, Blew shows her repeatedly being rescued by Jake when she loses control of her car on a dangerously icy road and on another, subzero night when she nearly freezes to death while walking home because her car won't start. Jake has to instruct her on how to drive on winter roads, how to maintain her car, and even how to dress appropriately for the bitter cold of a Montana winter. For all of her research and teaching talents as a professor, Diana is profoundly nescient, both in such practical terms as well as socially. Her colleague Ramona observes, "Diana, it's like you were never socialized. You might as well have been raised by wolves, except, I suppose, for having table manners and wearing clothes in public" (156). She had been deeply scarred by the belief that her parents had abandoned her and by a childhood with her cold, domineering maiden aunts who insisted, "You must learn to depend only on yourself" (42), even as they ill-equipped her for the task and continued, on into her adulthood, to try to control every aspect of her life. The interesting challenge Blew sets for herself by framing her story within this western mythology of a woman needing rescue is to show that the teacher can learn, and ultimately Diana does learn to succeed within her time (the 1970s), her new environment, her local and college community, and her relationship with Jake. [End Page 209] Western American literature scholars will find much to consider here, as Blew mentions a number of works of western literature and history (including Mourning Dove's Cogewea and Coyote Stories, Joseph Howard's biographical study of Louis Riel and the Métis people titled Strange Empire, and Lucullus McWhorter's Yellow Wolf). Her book is also reminiscent of Margaret Laurence's 1974 novel The Diviners, with its focus on an orphaned woman fighting for her independence and falling in love with a Métis man who is grappling with his own troubled past. I've known and admired Mary Blew for a number of years through the WLA, and I wrote the Western Writers Series biography of her in 2006, so I see a number of parallels to her previous work. For instance, much of both Blew's own fiction and nonfiction focuses on scarred female characters who are not entirely at ease in their own time, community, or their own skins. The memoirs All but the Waltz, Balsamroot, and This Is Not the Ivy League as well as the novel Jackalope Dreams are just a few of her books in which teachers have serious lessons to learn about themselves. Diana Karnov is another of...

Geç Dönem Osmanlı Kız Mekteplerinde Fennî Ev İdaresi Eğitimi: Müfredat ve Ders Kitapları

Bilimsel verilere ve modern standartlara dayali ev idaresi dusuncesi on dokuzuncu yuzyilda gundeme gelmis ve yuzyilin ortalarindan itibaren ev idaresi bagimsiz bir ders olarak kiz okullarinin mufredat programlarinda yer almaya baslamistir. Ev idaresi bilimsel bir alan olarak evin duzeni, fiziksel kosullari, temizlik, evde saglik, isinma, giyim, cocuklarin bakimi ve terbiyesi, yemek, sofra duzeni ve âdâb-i muâseret gibi ev ile ilgili pek cok konuda bilimsel ve pedagojik standartlar belirlemekte ve bu sekilde evde profesyonelligi ve verimliligi artirmayi hedeflemektedir. Modernlesme oncesi Osmanli dunyasinda, ahlakin konusu olan ve ahlak kitaplarinin bir bolumunu olusturan ev idaresi, on dokuzuncu yuzyilin ikinci yarisindan itibaren kitaplar ve sureli yayinlarda mustakil bir alan olarak ele alinmakta ve kiz mekteplerinde ders olarak okutulmaktadir. Standart, disiplin, duzen, rasyonellik, pragmatizm ve hijyen bu yeni ev idaresinin ana prensiplerini olusturmaktadir. Bu makale, devletin egitim politikasi olarak ev idaresinin gec donem Osmanli kiz mekteplerinde fenne dayali bir ders olarak okutulmasini ele almakta ve bu baglamda ders kitaplarini, talimatnameleri, nizamnameleri ve sureli yayinlari incelemektedir. Makale, kiz mekteplerinin mufredat programinda ev idaresi derslerinin yerini ve agirligini irdelemekte ve ilgili mufredat programlarinin ve ders kitaplarinin gundemi ile muhtevasini, Osmanli modernlesmesi ve kadinlarin egitimi meselesi cercevesinde tartismaktadir.

직장 여성의 사회적 매력 구성요소와 인상관리행동에 관한 연구

“Attractiveness” is becoming increasingly important in modern society and Hakim (2010) remarked it as even a fourth capital. Therefore, attractiveness required by career women, particularly among those judged by their job ability and performance, is not natural physical or sexual attractiveness but social attractiveness that can be realized through social presentation or social skills. Among social attractiveness factors, impression management behavior such as hairstyle, grooming, makeup, and skin-care management can improve acquired beauty alongside fashion style, clothing management, accessory style, and color management; meanwhile, social presentation can be improved, which consists of gaze and expression management, body language, and posture management for the improvement of liveliness. Furthermore, social skills consisting of business etiquette and face-to-face manners management, table manners, and life-manners management can be improved . In this study, I want to examine what impression management behaviors are most likely to develop the social attractiveness of career women. To this end, qualitative research was conducted and in-depth interviews were carried out with a group of experts from various industries. According to this study, impression management behavior to express the social attractiveness of career women is a social representation to fit in with the organizational atmosphere and increase work efficiency rather than the ideal beauty or acting to create individual expressions as pursued by ordinary women. This study deals with the importance of impression management behavior in improving the social attractiveness of career women to utilize their impression management behavior as a foundation for developing their job competency.

Cuisine, Health and Table Manners: Food Boundaries and Forms of Distinction among Primary School Children

Using data gathered during ethnographic fieldwork in two primary school canteens, this article investigates how pupils from different social origins perform and embody social class through food knowledge and demeanour. I employ Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to highlight three main oppositions concerning children’s relationship with food, which are rooted in the social and material environment of their families. Their gastronomic horizons (wide versus narrow), their awareness of the links between nutrients and health (specific versus general) and their embodiment of table manners (etiquette versus ludic) unveil how children’s dispositions are simultaneously structured by familial endowments and actively at work in the construction of social divisions.

Marketing local food and cuisine culture online: a case study of DMO’s websites in Egypt

Purpose Given the increased importance of food in tourists’ travel experience, the purpose of this paper is to explore the current and future potential of local food and foodways in marketing Egyptian destinations online. Design/methodology/approach The content of 20 Egyptian destination marketing organization (DMO) websites was subject to a content analysis. A checklist was developed based on literature analysis. The frequencies of information related to food culture and cuisine marketing were tallied, followed by a qualitative assessment of contents from the various websites. The results were further discussed with DMO representatives to provide contextualized insights as to the future potential of utilizing local food and food tourism initiatives as a component of DMOs website marketing in Egypt. Findings The study noted some initial efforts for Egyptian DMO websites to market food culture and gastronomic practices; however, the results suggest that the usage of food culture on Egyptian DMOs websites is still in its infancy. The study also highlights the challenges that need to be tackled as well as the resources required for food tourism development. Practical implications This study illustrates the need and potential capacity of Egyptian DMO websites to market food culture and local cuisines (including traditional foods and table manners). These results are expected to help Egyptian DMOs to strategically embrace local cuisine and food culture as a vehicle for destination marketing. Originality/value This case study provides insights for African and other developing economies in their destination marketing. The proposed framework and guidelines are intended to potentially serve as a framework for destination marketers and entrepreneurs to optimize the tourism potential of food culture.

To Live Like a Moor: Christian Perceptions of Muslim Identity in Medieval and Early Modern Spain

To Live Like a Moor: Christian Perceptions of Muslim Identity in Medieval and Early Modern Spain

Exploratory Factor Analysis of Observed Feeding Practices Among Family Child Care Home Providers (OR03-01-19)

ObjectivesFamily childcare homes (FCCH) are a commonly used form of childcare in the US, yet little is known about this setting, particularly the practices that Hispanic providers use when feeding children. Therefore, the goal was to examine the validity of the Environmental Policy Assessment Observation Tool (EPAO) to assess provider feeding practices. MethodsData from an ongoing cluster-randomized trial were used. FCCH provider feeding practices were assessed over 2 days using a modified version of the EPAO (adapted for use in FCCH with expanded assessment of feeding practices). The EPAO captures nutrition and physical activity environments in child-care (e.g., provisions, practices, policies); however, only the 44 feeding practices items recorded during meals were used in this study. For each meal and snack occasion, a weighted factor, which accounted for frequency and time spent in each meal for each feeding practice was created and then averaged across the two observation days to obtain a weighted average score. Exploratory factor analysis investigated the underlying factor structure of the feeding practices. ResultsAll FCCH providers were female (n = 119) and the majority (72%) were Hispanic. A final 3-factor solution, which captured 34% of the variance, was examined. Factor 1 appeared to capture autonomy support practices with 14 items (e.g., Enthusiastic role modeling, eating the same foods, talking about foods being served, reasoning with children) with loadings ranging from 0.455-0.875 (eigenvalue = 7.3). Factor 2 appeared to capture coercive control and indulgent feeding practices and emerged with 5 items (e.g., Insisting child eat foods on plate, pressuring child to eat, rushing child to eat) with loadings ranging from 0.410-0.817 (eigenvalue = 3.7). Factor 3 appeared to capture a mix of overt control and negative structure behaviors with 5 items (e.g., Enforcing table manners, encouraging children to sit at the table, removing the plate before child was done) with loadings ranging from 0.37-0.66 (eigenvalue = 3.2). ConclusionsThe emerging autonomy supportive and coercive controlling factors are consistent with recent research conducted with FCCH providers in North Carolina. Future research should continue to refine this model and explore associations with child diet. Funding SourcesNational Heart Lung and Blood Institute, Grant # R01 HL123016.

Cuberterías de plata del siglo XVIII: aspectos técnicos y ejemplos en el Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas

The great development in terms of typology and decoration that can be recognized in the European arts of the 18th century turns out particularly distinguished in silverwork. New table manners, which had been introduced from the end of the previous century, generated an increase in the number of pieces of presentation and the refinement in the production process of certain elements as the cutleries. With sprucer and smarter finishes, spoons, forks and knives, already considered as a whole set, diversified its variants abundantly during the 18th century, especially in the French production centers.

Eating and risk: adolescents’ reasoning regarding body and image

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore and elucidate adolescents’ reasoning about risks related to food and eating.Design/methodology/approachBoys and girls aged 15-16 years participated in a focus group interview with role-playing as a stimulus for discussion and reflection. In all, 31 participants took part, divided into five groups. In the role-playing, the participants portrayed agents who they perceived to give messages about food. In the focus group they discussed their experience of carrying out the role-play, and how they usually cope with conflicting messages, preferences and needs regarding food and eating.FindingsThe findings suggested that there were two main themes of risk profiling related to eating. One concerned bodily risk related to the food ingested and included concerns both about not reaching health and performance due to the unfavourable intake of calories, nutrients, additives, bacteria, viruses and parasites, and threats to immediate well-being following consumption. The second main category concerned the risk of being conspicuous, or “sticking out”, which incorporated food-based gender norms and norms related to table manners. In practice, the risk of not displaying an appropriate image of themselves through their food and eating choices was more prominent than risk perceptions related to impacts of food choices on well-being and performance. Difficulties in classifying foods as “good” or “bad” enhanced their uncertainty.Originality/valueThe results suggest that health-promotion activities for young people should focus not only on how to feed their bodies but also on how to avoid feeding their anxieties.

Feast of Burden: Food, Consumption and Femininity in Nineteenth-century England

At the end of the eighteenth century, a remarkable shift occurred in how upper-class women were taught to interact with food. Using conduct manuals and medical advice books, I show how women began to withdraw from the kitchen, taught to ignore the drudgery and burdens of food preparation as inappropriate for their class. This change precipitated a new definition of appropriate feminine behavior. New guidelines identified ladylike behavior with a lack of cooking, with impeccable table manners, and with a willingness to embrace new rituals such as the procession into the dining room. Women had to assume a very different role at dinner, one laden with new ceremonial emphasis. The etiquette surrounding this change demanded a strict adherence that made the display of one’s manners an indication of one’s morality, and the potential for embarrassment became so high that women were taught how to control their food consumption in order to avoid difficult or embarrassing dinner situations.

The devil and the hidden life of numbers: Translations and transformations in Amazonia: The Inaugural Claude Lévi-Strauss lecture

The notion of “aberrant derivations,” coined by Lévi-Strauss in The origin of table manners in his discussion of the strange sums made by Native American peoples, take us to an usual starting point-mathematics, to explore the theme of the transformations arising from the encounter between Amerindian peoples and whites in Amazonia, among them the conversion of Christianity.

Tree swallow chicks construct long-chain omega-3 fatty acids from building blocks

Imagine cramming an entire life's growth into a single month; that is exactly the challenge faced by some newly hatched chicks. ‘Tree swallows nearly double in mass every other day when they are between 5 and 10 days old’, says Cornelia Twining from Cornell University, USA. And this rapid mass gain places an immense burden on the parents, which must provide their offspring with nutritious food to satisfy their voracious appetites. Twining adds that highly unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids (long-chain omega-3 fatty acids), such as docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), are vital for the youngster's health and growth. However, only a few birds, such as chickens, are capable of producing these key fatty acids from shorter components; other species must obtain them through their diet, and aquatic insects, such as mayflies and midges, which dine on long-chain omega-3-rich algae, are the best source. As tree swallows benefit from a mix of terrestrial and aquatic insects in their diet, Twining and co-authors Tom Brenna, David Winkler, Peter Lawrence and Alex Flecker wondered whether the youngsters may be able to generate the essential long-chain omega-3 fatty acids from shorter components (alpha-linolenic acid – ALA) or whether they depend solely on the aquatic insects in their diet for their supply of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids.‘Tree swallows were a great species to work with … because they are very tolerant of researchers studying them during their breeding season’, says Twining, who recalls that the parents were content to keep feeding their young even when the researchers slipped the youngsters additional meals of olive oil laced with a labelled version of the ALA component, in order to trace whether the chicks were able to convert it into the longer chain fatty acids. ‘Getting them to gulp down from a syringe takes a little practice, but is not a problem, so long as they are gaping for food’, says Twining, although the youngsters’ table manners were less than impeccable. ‘Chicks are pretty messy eaters’, she recalls, which made it difficult to be sure exactly how much of the special olive oil the chicks had consumed.Forty-eight hours later, Twining extracted fatty acids from the chicks and analysed them with Lawrence and Brenna. Impressively, the chicks could convert the short-chain component into the essential long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, but could they satisfy all of their long-chain omega-3 demands from the short-chain components in their diet alone?Twining needed to know how much ALA various insects could provide the chicks, so she trapped insects ranging from aquatic mayflies and dragonflies to terrestrial beetles, flies, moths and butterflies to find out how much of the short fatty acid they contained. However, after she measured the amount of ALA in the insects’ bodies with Lawrence and Brenna, it was clear that the chicks were not able to produce sufficient long-chain omega-3 fatty acids from the short-chain fatty acid components supplied by their diet.‘We suggest that omega-3 HUFA [long-chain omega-3 fatty acids] are likely to be “ecologically essential” nutrients for tree swallow chicks’, says Twining, who is now keen to find out whether other wild species are capable of producing the essential long-chain omega-3 fatty acids from components in their diet. ‘I hope to understand what their physiological nutritional needs are and how likely they are to suffer nutritional mismatches if they cannot get what they need in their diet’, she says.

Do children with obesity have worse table manners? Associations between child table manners, weight status and weight gain

BackgroundChildren with obesity experience stigma stemming from stereotypes, one such stereotype is that people with obesity are “sloppy” or have poor manners. Teaching children “proper table manners” has been proposed as an obesity prevention strategy. Little is known about the association between children's weight status and table manners. ObjectivesTo examine correlates of child table manners and to examine the association of child table manners with child obese weight status and prospective change in child body mass index z-score (BMIz). MethodsMother-child dyads (N = 228) participated in a videotaped laboratory eating task with cupcakes. Coding schemes to capture child table manners (making crumbs, chewing with mouth open, getting food on face, shoving food in mouth, slouching, and getting out of seat), and maternal attentiveness to child table manners, were reliably applied. Anthropometrics were measured at baseline and at follow-up two years later. Regression analyses examined the association of participant characteristics with child table manners, as well as the associations of child table manners with child obese weight status, and prospective change in BMIz/year. ResultsPredictors of poorer child table manners were younger child age, greater cupcake consumption, and greater maternal attentiveness to child table manners. Poorer child table manners were not associated with child obese (vs. not) weight status, but were associated with a prospective decrease in BMIz/year in children with overweight/obesity. ConclusionsObesity interventions to improve table manners may be perpetuating unfavorable stereotypes and stigma. Future work investigating these associations is warranted to inform childhood obesity guidelines around table manners.

The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World by Jordan D. Rosenblum

Reviewed by: The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World by Jordan D. Rosenblum Zev Garber jordan d. rosenblum, The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Pp. xiii + 193. $99.99. Jordan D. Rosenblum is interested in one subject: how ancient Jews defended the kosher laws and how ancient Others—including the Greeks, Romans, and early Christians—critiqued these practices. Regarding the purpose and practice of kashrut in the Torah compared to food habits by Others in the ancient Near East, for example, researchers and scholars are not of one opinion. There is a mass of evidence, often contradictory, about the motives—social, political, psychopathic, religious—that appear to have influenced societal permitted and nonpermitted animal–fish–fowl food hunt and preparation, by whose authority, and so forth. It seems that there is no satisfactory explanation of humanity's propensity to pollute, uproot, and kill living forms in water, land, and air. Yet there are examples of cultural and religious thought defending the legitimacy of culinary practices. The goal of this book is to examine this paradox in the dicta of Jewish dietary belief and practice as defended within (Self) and critiqued from without (Other). For Rosenblum, how cultures critique and defend their religious food practices covers the spectrum of human behavior and thought. Patterns of food gathering generate diet and table manners. Food language and ways reflect conceivable abuse and misuse. For example, Hebrew leḥem ("bread") and qārôb ("near," exemplified by mealtime activity and companionship) are semantically related to milḥāmâ ("war") and qorbān (here, sacrificial animal [End Page 323] offering), societal activities that extend life by taking life. Nonetheless, battle for leḥem is instinctive, and selfless caring and devotion to the welfare of animals is a core Jewish concern suggested by the biblical-rabbinic teaching against animal cruelty (ṣacar bacalê ḥayyim). This instruction and other teachings have guarded the value of animal life in the study of Jewish religion. Raḥămîm ("merciful compassion," from reḥem, "mother's womb") and Menschlichkeit (decent behavior) are experienced by humans in relation to the ascendency of the animal from victim to shared kindred with humans. To explicate answers to a whole array of Jewish dietary regulations, R. resorts to a plethora of stories, teachings, and case histories from kosher food trends and how ancient Greeks, Romans, and early Christians critiqued these practices. The chapters are informed by pages of footnotes, a selected bibliography, and a wide range of sources, including Hebrew Scriptures, rabbinic sources, Greco-Roman and early church writings, medieval sources, and contemporary scholarship. In the introduction, Rosenblum charts the book's divisions and sections and explains his rationale for selection and interpretation. Kosher laws are first encountered in the Torah, but it is in ancient biblical interpretation that the basic meaning and applied innovative practice related to biblical dietary regulations are extracted. In R.'s methodology, core beliefs are seeded in revelation, reason, and allegory and are informed by a variety of issues, including theological, moral, political, social, and financial considerations. R. is less interested in an inclusive discussion of items and issues (e.g., women and kashrut—there is no detailed discussion of why Esther [Greek addition] does not partake of the king's food or why Judith provides her own food when eating at the table of the non-Jewish general Holofernes) than in illustrating genres and their features. The result is a thinking person's literary guide to ancient Jewish dietary mores that complements nicely epochal approaches in the study of Judaism. Drawing from the wells of Jewish scriptural, rabbinic (tannaitic and amoraic), and Hellenistic tradition and contrasting Hellenistic non-Jewish examples, Rosenbloom depicts the kosher ethos in sociological, religious, and ethical categories to bring about a caring and moral society. R.'s writing is disciplined; his research is well founded; and his goal is to clarify the muddle that exists in academic and religious approaches. In chap. 1, R. lists and summarizes primary biblical verses and themes related to kashrut but without explanations of context. For example, the dietary laws in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 are divine...

On Differences of Table Manners between China and West

On Differences of Table Manners between China and West

A New Approach to Table Manners from the Viewpoint of Action Fluency

A New Approach to Table Manners from the Viewpoint of Action Fluency

THE FOOD IN THE SOCIALIZATION PROCESS: INTIMATE AND EXTIMATE

The article is devoted to the meaning of the food for socialization, socio-cultural identification of the human. Sociality of Human is not a simple natural phenomenon, the process of socialization is mediated by various ritual practices. As a universal indicator of the social being, the article deals with food, since it combines the vital necessity for a human as a natural organism and socio-cultural significance of common meals, beyond which no socially important event passes. It is argued that food/table traditions define of social structures, cultural diversity and social-cultural identity. It is noted that the meal is always common. In society food is excluded alone, unlike other natural processes, which appear as exclusively intimate. The process of inclusion (as well as exclusion) into a specific community/genus is marked through the ritual, through the formation and strict observance of table manners and the diet. The process of civilization is generally associated with the normalization of everyday life, which leads to the standardization of food and eating of the feast to overcome the aversion to Another, in order to make it possible of coexistence. Nutrition proves the unevenness and some limited of social relations, defining of the space of intimacy/privacy, access to which is in some measure limited (by age, gender, status, class, money). On the other hand, the expansion, extimation of this space occur during of the collective initiation rituals or in the ethos of hospitality. Thus, the transformation of the food rituals reveals the dialectic of acceptance and disgust, aufheben of which is carried out against the backdrop of cultural averaging, which characterizes the modern society. In the article, the influence of the food rituals on socialization is specified in the definition of the function of potlatch and initiation, the meaning of which is revealed only through a food, which is the material basis of a certain community.