Local and International Trends in Hospitality and Gastronomy

Early food sharing

The sharing of food first and foremost was not necessarily a contact form between human groups but rather it was the family’s (or only the wife and husband’s) internal business. Family members share food with each other not only when they nurture their offspring but it continues mutually among group members up until their death (Kaplan and Gurven 2005). Intergroup food transfer often aims to ease social tension and ensure peace between groups (families, clans, villages, traders, etc.). Looking at the different religious and cultural explanations of food sharing in hospitality we can see that treating strangers was often involved sacrifice. This practice is probably can be explained by the fact that unknown arrivals often carried the aura of deities.
In the Bible, more precisely in the Genesis (18 1-15), we can find one of the first descriptions of hospitality and food sharing. When Abraham had met three travellers (later regarded them as angels) he faced down and offered them shelter and food to restore their strength. The text gives a very precise description of the event: “Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, ‘Quick, grab three seahs of our best flour! Knead it and bake some bread!’ Then Abraham ran to the herd, took a calf, tender and choice, and gave it to a servant, who rushed to prepare it. He took cheese and milk and the calf that had been prepared and set these before them;
and he waited on them [the visitors] under the tree as they ate.” This is a compass for hospitality for many, indicating the portion and the type of food to be served to strangers.


Image 3. Giovanni Andrea de Ferrari: Abraham and the Three Angels

Abraham’s case is not the only one example of hospitality in classical texts. From ancient Egyptian cases to Homer we find the indication of food in hospitality demonstrating that food was always symbolic and that food not only symbolizes the relationship between humans and between humans and deities but also food is symbolic in itself.

Beside the classical sources archaeologists working in Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia have found that the in Koobi Fora formation in the east Turkana area, about 2.5 million years ago, hominids were already involved in the manufacture but more importantly meat-eating and hunting, that they were carried out of a home-base, and carrying food to be shared. Since then food became not only material means of biological needs but also a symbolic tool of satisfying human exchange. And although eating food primarily is a biological need,
preparing food, more precisely cooking is a cultural universal, found in every society in the world.


Image 4. Kamoya Kimeu (right),