Although my own family fends for ourselves at mealtimes, at least we work together serving other families. We can put a huge dent in the demise of the family by simply functioning as a family...especially at meal times. It's something we really need...badly !! A Michelin-starred chef on why families should always eat together Although my own family fends for ourselves at mealtimes, at least we work together serving other families. We can put a huge dent in the demise of the family by simply functioning as a family...especially at meal times. It's something we really need...badly !! A Michelin-starred chef on why families should always eat together... Home for me as a boy was a couple of dozen acres in County Meath. It was idyllic in many ways, but hard work. Family farming in Ireland in the 1970s could be touch-and-go. It was labour intensive too. I was one of seven children and we were expected to put our shoulder to the wheel. A good appetite was never a problem and meal times, especially Sunday lunches, were the still point around which our family life revolved. So I have always instinctively felt the truth behind the cliché that the family which eats together stays together. But is that hunch backed up by hard facts or is it a nostalgic dream, increasingly unobtainable in a world where many parents work long and unpredictable hours? Well, the usefulness of family meals is no fantasy. You would expect me, as a life-long restaurateur, to argue in favour of the positive effects of people breaking bread together. I watch people do it everyday. It is one of the reasons I love my work. But I am equally passionate about the importance of meals in the home. My wife, Maria, and our three children – Richard, Jessica and Robert – try to sit down and eat together as often as we can. This has always felt like common sense. It worked for me as a boy growing up north of Dublin and, although there is less greenery around us at our home in north London, it works for me as a father. It is one of the reasons I agreed to become the patron of a British think tank which tries to put some hard science behind the soft glow of a good home. The Home Renaissance Foundation was founded by my friend Sir Bryan Sanderson, a former managing director of BP and chairman of BUPA. He wanted to promote an understanding and an appreciation of what our homes can do when they work well. Research by the Home Renaissance Foundation shows us that family meals should not be dismissed as so much 1950s retro. According to economics professor Dr Sophia Aguirre, who wrote a paper for the Foundation about this, family dinners generate “human capital”. Kids who sit down regularly with parents and siblings do better at exams than those who don’t. Rates of substance abuse, obesity and eating disorders are also lower. Her graphs show that what really matters is the quality of the time together. As soon as a television is switched on during a family meal, a lot of the good socialising stops. Now, you could argue that, if kids have parents who are up to organising a family meal at the dining table, those children already have a headstart. For one thing, many of the homes we build nowadays have no room for a dining table. And if it’s not the building, it’s the people. In chaotic families, the routine that regular meal times need just isn’t there. But Dr Aguirre’s work also shows how it is precisely these disadvantaged youngsters who need formal family meals more than others. It is at the dining table that we impart some of the most important lessons of life: how to tell a story, share our recollections of the day and listen politely. It is where kids should learn something about manners. Not formal etiquette, but how to behave in company. It is easy to dismiss these things as irrelevant. The diners at my restaurant in Mayfair know what a soup spoon looks like. But last August, not a million miles away from my own home, the riots showed us that a generation of young men are not part of the story of social mobility which drew me to Britain. I am not for a second saying that learning how to tell the difference between a fish and steak knife will help cure “broken Britain”. But I do sincerely believe that something as simple as sharing a family meal can do a surprising amount of good. If you can get kids into the habit early enough, family meals can be the making of what the academics call “soft skills” – even if it is just once a week. Some of my happiest memories of growing up in Ireland are of Sunday lunch. It was a team effort, laying the table, bringing in the food, clearing up afterwards. It was a punctuation mark in the week and the source of many family traditions. Thanks to what I have learned from Dr Aguirre and the Home Renaissance Foundation, I now realise it was also preparing me for life in ways I was not even aware of at the time. The next time your child comes home from an after-school activity and zaps something in the microwave consider this. The biggest leg-up your child can get from you might not be Kumon or ballet lessons, but a seat at the family dining table. http://www.catholich...s-eat-together/
My dad's father was a very bad alcoholic and both my dad and my uncle don't say much about him. Through the years we learned that my grandfather was a nice guy who would get paid on Friday, stay away from home for several days and then return home to hear from my grandmother that work was calling looking for him for the last couple of days. He always returned broke and drunk. One story was that on a Saturday around Christmas time, my dad came home from playing ball around noon to find his dad passed out on the floor with the Christmas tree on top of him. Apparently, he made it home, passed out and grabbed the tree on the way down and out. That night, they ate dinner together as a family. Not much was said, because my grandmother was seething. The silence around the table was broken when my grandfather looked at my dad and said, "Thanks, Stephen for helping me up and to bed today. You know, I woke up and smelled that pretty smell; saw all those pretty lights and thought for sure I was dead and stretched out in Lamana, Panna. Fallo !!" (A poor mans funeral home in new Orleans) What always struck me with that story was that They ate together as a family anyway. My uncle told my cousins that exact same story and now it is part of the Herbert family lore. I can't speak for my cousin (Who is a chef also), but as for me, It is one of the main reasons I ended up in this profession. Maybe there is a greater need for families to dine together in times of distress...a lot of healing can occur around a table.
I love a family meal. During the week, that's hard to accomplish with homework, extracurriculars, meetings, etc., but I think it's very important as a bonding time. My ten-year-old is starting to love to cook, so we'll cook together most nights, and I love that, too. Sunday nights are generally a family dinner kind of night, and any time that my parents are in town (or we are there.) I grew up that way, though. We can also have a huge family dinner at a restaurant. I love the chance just to talk. My husband doesn't get the concept, however, because no one in his family ever talked to each other. I finally stopped trying to organize any family dinners with that side of the family because it was, frankly, quite uncomfortable to get together at our house or a restaurant and listen to the very loud silence at the table. As it is, my husband is incapable of putting down his iPhone in a restaurant--and that irritates me. If the family is out together, we should be more important than a text or an email.
When I see people texting and playing phone games when they're in my restaurant, I'm always tempted to get their phone number and text them this message... "A $5 texting surcharge will be added to your bill."
Well, that just highlights the difference between eating and dining. Eating is alleviation of hunger. It's something you do in a car after you've gone through the drive through line. It's something you do as you're scarfing down something at your desk at work. It's self absorbing and has nothing to do with others. It's a solitary activity that can, ironically, evolve into the realm of dining if you're alone and texting a friend while you're eating out by yourself. Dining is communion with others. It's about an occasion for people to come together, over food, and become involved personally with each other. It's about lives being interconnected and bonds being formed or strengthened. When I was pursuing owning a restaurant, I literally spent a lot of time meditating on what I wanted to accomplish. More specifically I was praying for guidance and direction from above because I needed to know more clearly if this was a vocation. It became pretty clear to me what my purpose was and I formulated a mission statement for my business then and there. It had nothing to do with money and that's probably why I'm successful. My mission statement is... " To provide a venue and an occasion for families and friends to dine together and become closer to each other and closer to God at the table." Next time you're talking to a restaurant owner, ask him what his mission statement is and see what kind of puzzled look you get from him. Either there is no mission statement or it is "To get the money that's rightfully mine out of your back pocket." Next time you go out to eat with others, why not dine instead of eat? Or if you're by yourself...text a friend.
I feel it's important to break bread together. Unfortunately, we very seldom do. One won't be hungry or like what was cooked, or have a function. It's stupid how hard this is to achieve.
Family meals are important and often tasty . . . but they are not sacrosanct. My mom expected everybody only at Sunday dinner and Holiday dinners. Most nights we ate together, but if anyone had somewhere else to go, we would go . . . including Mom, who would just tell us to fend for ourselves, which was cool because Dad's cooking was good too, just simpler.
if i were a parent, communal meals 3x a week wold be mandatory. when i was a kid we generally ate together, which is unfortunate because everything my mother cooked tasted like burnt sadness
