“Meals are extremely significant moments in forming a family’s values.”

However people tend to mix up the two terms. When seated at a table you are required to interact. When invited for dinner, you know you’re not just going to eat and go. You are expected to play a certain part and perform a few social rituals. If not kept alive by human interaction, meal times soon turn into a deadly bore. And this is what makes them so interesting: sometimes guests fail to strike it off. Of course the mechanisms ruling meals between friends (based on the need to bring magic back into social interactions) or the role-play of family meals are totally different. […] But, in general, meals offer an opportunity for people to get together and are usually moments to be enjoyed. People love to gather around a table to discuss the insignificant events that make up their daily life. Such triviality helps families find the right emotional balance and achieve a necessary sense of well-being which resides in the smooth running of things (see the studies conducted by Hungarian sociologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi). Well-being should not be sought after with a view to attaining absolute happiness, solely through intense experiences. On the contrary, well-being should be found in balance and homeostasis. Meal times are an opportunity to show that all is well and things are running smoothly.

CADI: Indeed people are seldom excited about sharing a meal with the family…

J.J.B: Right. And it is particularly interesting to note that meal times are sometimes based on scenarios related to all aspects of social life. One can choose from an endless number of different modes: such as bringing back the magic to social interactions, celebrations, transgressions and so on. Yet the most frequently chosen stance remains that of banality: the recurrence of the dishes, situations, conversations etc.

CADI: The term “homeostasis” refers to Eastern philosophies and especially to martial arts, a discipline in which happiness is to be found in constancy.

J.J.B: This is the reason why my book Le sens gourmand[2] closes with a chapter on flavor and blandness. The latter leads to happiness, which takes hold during reflective and repetitive moments e.g. relaxing on the beach, gazing at the ebb and flow of the tide, or as Gaston Bachelard stated, sitting in front of a coal fire. Nothing happens as such, we are floating about, as if suspended, in a world, which is void of meaning yet laden with intensity. Meal-sharing can become part and parcel of this kind of relationship with oneself and with the world. It is therefore a rather “bland” moment, which means that it helps to bring people closer to a certain kind of tranquility.

Mealtimes are also a time when major information pertaining to social customs is passed on to children. My studies are focused upon this in-camera moment experienced within a unity of time, place and action.

1001 saveurs - final degree project by Morgane Bily, carried out with the help of Jean-Jacques Boutaud, 2008-2009

CADI: Meal-sharing mirrors family and group interactions.

J.J.B: Meals are a time when we can observe social evolutions and rites of passage such as a child’s first glass of wine or first time opening a Champagne bottle and indeed many more minor coming-of-age cultural performances that later fall into oblivion…

CADI: How does design prove interesting to people interested in meal-sharing and culinary arts?

J.J.B: Morgane Bily – whose project I was asked to supervise – really understood that design projects need to address the notion of sign. This prevails in the overall field of design, of course, but is particularly true in the field of meal-sharing, as described above.

Looking at the way Morgane introduces the various parts of her study, it can be seen that she has employed a number of food-related titles. We could almost speak of “title designing.”

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