Close your eyes. Picture the table that you would most want to be seated at right now for a meal or a drink. Is it your grandmother’s kitchen table for lamb stew? Your best friend’s dining room table for a cup of Earl Grey tea? A special table in the corner at the most romantic restaurant in your town? Perhaps it is your uni hostel table where you spent hours day dreaming as a student? For me personally it is all of the above.
Growing up we ate at least two but often three meals at our kitchen table. I can still see it in my mind’s eye. Ours was a panelite table. A blue, six-seater panelite table with matching chairs. There were five of us in the home, so the sixth chair was always open & welcoming to a friend, heartbroken stranger, family member, exchange student or neighbourhood kid looking for some TLC.
The picture is fixed in my mind: the placemats, the mismatched cutlery, the basic crockery. Very often egg cups for boiled eggs during breakfast. Always tea cups with saucers, a teapot with tea cozy & a milk jug for tea. Large dishes of slow-cooked comfort food.
The panelite table was not only reserved for eating though. It was also for the preparation of food. I wonder: how many kilograms of fresh produce did my mother peel, slice, dice, blanch & freeze here in her 40+ years in this house? It was also reserved for homework, for praying & huisgodsdiens, crafts & paperwork. Later when my mom passed on, my dad used this table as his personal extension of the garage, study & any space where he wanted to pack his books & tools.
On Sundays we would have our big Sunday lunch at the more formal dining room table, but for every other meal, the blue panelite table was the go-to.
Why eating at the table matters
What is it about eating together? The truth is that eating together connects us in a special, unique way. It is a way for us to look each other in the eye & say – I see you. In the Bible, Jesus often ate with people. Many significant events happened around tables & at places where people gathered. A shared meal around a table is the most natural to make strangers feel welcome, to deepen relationships & to teach. I can’t agree more with Dennis Prescott – chef, Instagram food creator & cookbook author, when he told Bon Appetit: “Food is one of the few things that we globally share—it doesn’t matter where you come from, what language you speak—we all break the same bread together as a community…”
For the last couple of years, we have had a group of three families who have dinner together once a week – rotating between the three houses. Getting the tweens at the table is often challenging & sometimes things get out of hand with their jokes & crazy appetites! But, what I love most is to see how they love this time around the table with their people.
Setting the table & serving one or more people is a special act of kindness. I love it so much when I can see that someone went through some effort to host, cooked something from scratch or perhaps even wrote my name on a place card.
On a podcast episode on A Table in The Corner, Abigail Donnelly said something that really resonates with me: “If you are a feeder like me, then you just enjoy being served.” The gesture of serving & sharing is much bigger than the actual food. Do you agree?
Never feel intimidated by serving food to anyone. Just make a meal or even a slice of toast with love & serve it with kindness at your table. Even a Michelin star would appreciate this generosity.
I’d like to take a moment for chatting & sitting & feasting around tables; kitchen tables, dining room tables, restaurant tables. Tables of friends, tables of strangers, tables of our grandmothers & mothers, tables of chefs & cooks.
Let’s ditch the couch & never forget the magic of the table & eating together. It transcends cultures & brings us together in a most profound way.
“The same way you reach another person with music, you can create this beautiful visceral moment at the table with the food or coffee you serve to people. These things, for me, center around community… We fundamentally need more time together around the table… Great wine, great food, great coffee all do that. We are so much better for this time at the table,” adds Dennis Prescott.
Eating is a necessity, Sharing is an art.
Let me know – what do you love most about eating together at a table?
Yolandi