Eating and Drinking in Four Nordic Countries: Change and Stability Since the 1990s
摘要
This chapter addresses social and cultural aspects of eating and drinking in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, and how this changed in the period 1997–2012. Questions are raised whether eating patterns and the role of meals are changing in modern postindustrial societies. The public and scholars are concerned that nibbling, individualization, de-traditionalization, disruption, gastro-anomy, globalization, meal erosion, and commercialization replace shared rhythms, social meals, and national food cultures. To address this, comprehensive data is needed which track micro changes in daily life and acknowledge the multidimensionality of eating. Results are presented from two empirical studies conducted 15 years apart, both including national representative samples of the adult populations in the four countries. The studies were based on a model of the eating system, which combines physical organizational and sociocultural aspects of eating by focusing on three elements: the time structure of eating, the meal formats, and the social organization of eating. Nationally distinct and socially shared eating patterns persist within each of the four countries, and there is little evidence of dissolution and individualization of traditional eating patterns in terms of the timing and number of eating events or to the social context of eating. In the Nordic countries, eating still primarily takes place in the home and in the company of family members. The most striking changes relate to the conduct of meals, where informal codes of conduct appear to be spreading.