In the past few years I’ve become very interested in observing and studying the social and psychospiritual elements of dining and dinner table habits. I am frequently horrified at the site of couples eating out in public, sitting across a table from one another, and paying no attention whatsoever to the other person and instead feeding their attention to whatever social media algorithm had enslaved them for the moment. I see this happening equally in young and older couples, the allurements of technology are not picky in the souls they snatch.
On the other side of the spectrum I sometimes have the habit of leaving my phone in my car, or perhaps even leaving it completely at home on a night out, and this act is 100% effective at improving any social experience one could imagine. In fact, I speculate that by giving one’s attention completely to the world around us rather than the cave of technology, we summon some sort of magic in the air that leads to more interesting experiences, running into more people we know, and an overall increase in exciting and intriguing conversations.
Perhaps it is because I am simply forced to pay more attention without my phone, but I am always noticing funnier things and running into more interesting people when I do not have my phone on me. Yet I still propose that just as Thoreau, and later Hill, speculated so many years ago: our intention and focus molds the universe in our favor.
The second element of the dining experience that I’ve recently become awakened to is the value of having a formatted conversation or round-robin style dinner discussion. I read about the concept of a Jeffersonian Dinner some years ago and had begun to host them around Nashville. Essentially you have no more than 12 people around the table, a moderator, and a series of topics. One person is allowed to speak at a time, no interrupting, and the moderator is the host of the conversation. He will propose question or ideas to the table, and attendees will be at their own free-will to take on the topic and provide their own perspective and view. Eventually you experience the phenomena of the guests building their ideas upon the ideas of the last speaker, and the philosophies spiral upward into an elegant crescendo of collective thought before the moderator decides to reset the music and ask another question.
This style is great because rather than everyone just idly chatting with the person next to them or around them, they get the chance to hear the ideas of the whole table and share their ideas with the same. It is a great way to host a fun dinner party!
It is obvious that the food should be of the highest quality if you think highly of those who you are hosting. I also believe that it is crucial to serve the food on shared platters that the guests pass around to one another as they make their selections and add their bounties to their personal plates. I have always felt it odd at restaurants where everyone orders for themselves and the food all comes separately and there is no communal element at all unless an appetizer is purchased. Set the table and serve the food family style, bread and butter in the middle, some shareables scattered about the way, and even the main entrees served family style, bottles of wine, all of this brings people together and creates a bond that is both primal and spiritual.
I also believe that equal to the quality of the food is the quality of the atmosphere. Dining is not merely an experience of taste as we know, but all of the senses combined to create a whole-sensory experience. If I am hosting I want nice plates and silverware, elegant beeswax candles, perhaps a bit of an ancient incense rolling through the air. All of these elements are where the attention to detail turn the dinner into an experience and an art form, and not merely a meal. This formula leads to memorable evenings, and if you are the host and treat your guests with such respect, your guests will respect the care you put into caring for them.
I employ all of these methods at Meriwether Academy and we take pride in our dining experiences, they serve as a foundational compliment to all of the day’s other activities and a bedrock of the class and care we aim to standardize in modern culture.
WARREN STEURY – FOUNDER MERIWETHER