Eating Out: Social Differentiation, Consumption and Pleasure

by Alan Warde , Lydia Martens

• ISBN13: 9780521590440
• ISBN10: 0521590442
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-05-01
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Eating Out is a fascinating study of the consumption of food outside the home, based on extensive original research carried out in England in the 1990s. Reflecting the explosion of interest in food, ranging from food scares to the national obsession with celebrity chefs, the practice of eating out has increased dramatically over recent years. Through surveys and intensive interviews, the authors have collected a wealth of information into people's attitudes towards, and expectations of, eating out as a form of entertainment and an expression of taste and status. Amongst other topics they examine social inequalities in access to eating out, social distinction, interactions between customers and staff, and the economic and social implications of the practice. Eating Out will be a valuable resource to academics, advanced students and practitioners in the sociology of consumption, cultural studies, social anthropology, tourism and hospitality, home economics, marketing, and the general reader.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	vii
List of tables	viii
Acknowledgements	x
Studying eating out	1	(20)
Methods of investigation	6	(3)
Theories and themes	9	(7)
The organisation of the book	16	(5)
Part I Modes of provision
The development of the habit of eating out in the UK	21	(21)
The commercial mode	23	(12)
Institutional catering	35	(3)
The communal mode	38	(2)
Provision: a summary	40	(2)
The meanings of eating out	42	(27)
Shared understandings of eating out	43	(4)
Reasons to eat out: pleasure, leisure and necessity	47	(5)
Attitudes towards eating out	52	(3)
Eating out and other leisure activities	55	(1)
Entertaining	56	(5)
Shared understanding and cultural templates	61	(8)
Part II Access
Patterns of eating out	69	(23)
The forming of a habit?	71	(3)
Commercial venues: who visits where?	74	(12)
On being a guest	86	(2)
Metropolitan and provincial patterns	88	(1)
The concentration of inequality	89	(3)
Domestic organisation, family meals and eating out	92	(25)
The organisation of domestic foodwork	94	(5)
Commercial alternatives: substitution, time and money	99	(3)
Shared understandings of the meal and the regulation of eating out	102	(3)
About family meals and moral panics	105	(3)
Domestic organisation, families and commodification	108	(9)
Part III Delivery
Personal service in public and private settings	117	(18)
Service and formality in the restaurant	121	(7)
Comparing commercial service and private hospitality	128	(3)
Power and informality	131	(4)
Last suppers	135	(34)
Mapping food tastes	147	(12)
Diversity, convergenceoranomie?	159	(10)
Part IV Enjoyment: the attractions of eating out
Eating out as a source of gratification	169	(22)
Are customers really satisfied?: a methodological interlude	175	(9)
Gratification and the definition of diningout	184	(1)
Towards as ystematic vocabulary of gratification: a theoretical interlude	184	(5)
Elements of enjoyment	189	(2)
The enjoyment of meal events	191	(24)
Sensuality: pleasure and joy	191	(4)
Instrumentalism: satisfaction and achievement	195	(4)
Contemplation: entertainment and appreciation	199	(5)
Sociality : participation and mutuality	204	(3)
The social importance of mutual gratification	207	(2)
Simple and compound enjoyment	209	(6)
Part V Conclusion
Eating out and theories of consumption	215	(13)
Events	215	(3)
Variety	218	(6)
The social consequences of eating out	224	(4)
Methodological appendix: data collection and analysis	228	(6)
References	234	(9)
Index	243