Social Research, March 22nd, 1999
The social custom of who eats with whom is nearly as important as what is consumed. Cultural hierarchy is typically tied directly to what one is allowed to eat, and what kind of familial or social relations are to be present. A lack of observance of these proscriptions can alter a meal from sustaining to contaminated.
In all societies, sharing food is a way of establishing closeness, while, conversely, the refusal to share is one of the clearest marks of distance and enmity. These points have been repeatedly made by both anthropologists and psychologists (Miller, Fiske, and Rozin, 1998). Comm...
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