Why Sharable Meals?

Earlier this week we came across a freshman high school student who was curious as to why there were so many Sharable meals on the menus of participating Plate of Nations restaurants.

“Why don’t you just have a bunch of food for one person?” he asked.

Well, while all Plate of Nations participating restaurants do, of course, offer individual entrees as a normal course of business, the idea of offering sharable plates is foundational to our event.

Yes, having sharable meals allows for a sampling of various dishes that might not regularly be offered in one serving, but they go deeper than that.

In a time when divisiveness, alienation, and polarization seem to seize the day, the dinner table is one of the few areas that can still function as a unifier.

Alice Julier, author of the book Eating Together, asserts that dining together can radically alter our mindsets of others: It reduces people’s perceptions of inequality, and diners tend to view those of different races, genders, and socioeconomic backgrounds as more equal than they would in other social scenarios.

The dinner table can also act as a temporary refuge from the frenzy of the day. It’s a place to deliberately re-connect with friends, forge deeper relationships with family, and pause for a while -remembering what it’s like to just be a human on earth. And while doing so, enjoying life’s small wonders created when great conversation marries great food.
Wolfing down an entrée by yourself provides none of the above. In fact, regularly eating alone can be a socially isolating experience leading to a more negative worldview (remember the kid who ate by himself in the lunch room? Oh, that was you… moving on…).

So why do we offer sharable meals, young man? It’s because, well… we want to do our part to bring our community together and make it better, one plate at a time.