...and she was going on about her Edible Schoolyard project which, per her daughter Fanny who was also present, is pretty much all Alice thinks or talks about these days. She's consumed by this mission, which is a cool thing. But one thing she said stood out to me--she claimed that 85% of children these days do not eat even one communal family meal each day. And one of the fallouts of that is that kids aren't growing up with the reflexive table manners needed in a polite society like asking for someone to pass the peas and even knowing which direction to pass things once they come to you.
And that really hit me, because I'm so often in group dining situations where I see evidence of this very thing. And at several ages, too; it's not just younger people.
I grew up in a family of six and we were often seven, with a grandmother. We had dinner together every night and occasionally breakfast, though most midday meals we were on our own. At the dinner table, which was rectangular, passing food was imperative and so was passing all food the same direction, clockwise, to prevent bottlenecks.
Oops...cat emergency. Must run, will continue later.
